Clause 23 - Condition that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education), Department for Education and Skills; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman helpfully asked me to intervene; if I do not, it will seem that his figures are right, but they are wrong. Full fee remission runs from some £21,000 to about £30,000—I do not have the exact figures. Fee remission will be £1,200 in 2006, and students will pay more if their fees are higher. There is no avoiding that: they will pay it later on an income-contingent basis. We have decided, having debated the issue at length over the past few weeks, to turn the fee remission into an up-front grant. Nobody will get fee remission any more, but the taper for the grant—that is where the hon. Gentleman is wrong—runs beyond £30,000. By 2006, when the legislation takes effect, it will be up to about £33,000 a year. The up-front grant will depend on household income, so nobody will get fee remission. There is a perfectly logical argument for that, which I cannot deal with in a short intervention.