Tuition Fees (Hansard, 8 November 1999)

§ Mr. Boswell
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the current net yield of tuition fees at higher education institutions in England. [97656]

§ Mr. Wicks
Figures for the current net yield of tuition fees at the higher education institutions in England are not yet available.
The higher education funding plans assumed that institutions in England will receive private income from home and EU students starting full-time undergraduate courses for 1998–99 as follows: £130 million in 1998–99; an extra £105 million in 1999–2000; and, compared with 1998–99, an extra £203 million in 2000–01. Over this period, the higher education sector will retain all the income from student contributions to fees and receive extra public funding on top. Figures for 2001–02 will be announced later.

§ Mr. Boswell
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what arrangements his Department has made to ensure that higher education institutions do not breach the prohibition on top-up fees. [97657]

§ Mr. Wicks
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has imposed a condition on the grant to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for 1999–2000 under section 26(4) of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998. Any institution which charges, or announces its intention to charge, top-up fees to students who have been assessed as eligible to be considered for fee support could incur financial penalties. With the assistance of HEFCE, the Department has been monitoring the charges made by individual institutions to ensure that top-up fees are not levied.

§ Mr. Boswell
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many students are wholly or partly exempted from paying tuition fees; what proportion that represents of the student body; and what is the range of that proportion between the various higher education institutions. [97655]

§ Mr. Wicks
The first data on local education authority financial support, for the student tuition fees introduced in 1998–99, will be available in April 2000, from returns collected retrospectively from local education authorities in England and Wales.
These data will show the number of locally-domiciled students who, are income assessment, have had their fees paid (i) in part; and (ii) in full by their local education authority, and the number of students who paid their own tuition fees in full. It will not be possible to identify payments made to individual institutions from these data.