Clause 23 - Condition that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North, Labour)
Again, the hon. Gentleman has not benefited from the seminars that a number of us attended prior to Christmas. He confuses grants with fee repayments. I would rather not take more of your time, Mr. Hood, to explain it further. It is not a simple equation between money for grants and money paid back in fees. I explained that as carefully as I could, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East.
Amendment No. 144 deals with a technical question. It is not merely whether universities should enjoy the freedom to propose the cost of a course: what we do in response to their proposals is entirely another matter. We know that an operation under the NHS costs a certain amount of money. Labour Members would not dream of putting a price tag on it. However, the price of certain operations can be used—it may well be used by Opposition parties—to demand a certain amount of money for such operations in response. The price points are politically neutral. The question is what we do with them.