Clause 23 - Condition that may be requried to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
10:15 am
Mr Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman is, indeed, trying to tempt me into setting out policy details, but it is not appropriate to do so now, not least because you might rule me out of order, Mr. Gale. We do not accept the figure that the hon. Gentleman quoted and when our policy emerges, he will see why not. Furthermore, he started by saying that, without top-up fees, there would be a lot less money for universities. We absolutely do not accept that. Indeed, as we shall explain later, the Government's proposals would cost the taxpayer between £1 billion and £1.2 billion to raise, at best, some £900 million for universities. That is a pretty bad deal. Moreover, that calculation assumes zero clawback from the Treasury, which is a heroic assumption, given the history of the Chancellor's substantial clawbacks through lower grant allocations when new sums are made available.