Clause 23 - Condition that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
2:30 pm
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East, Labour)
I was taken by surprise by the time extension this morning. I continue almost in the middle of my sentence making the point that clause 23 is an important part of the Bill. To my understanding it is the element that divided the House: about 49.5 per cent. of the House voted against and 50.5 per cent. voted for. However, that is not reflective of the numerical membership of the Committee. There is a danger that we may not get the Bill through.
That close vote, triggered by the issue of variability, was supported by people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, who has highlighted great doubts about variability and involving the market in higher education. She is a nice, pleasant individual who is aware of the traditions of not killing a Bill on Second Reading. She, my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt), I and others worked hard in negotiations to make the Bill more acceptable and were granted important concessions. We were prepared, because the negotiations continued until the last moment, to vote for the Bill on Second Reading on the understanding—I am a naive Scottish Yorkshireman so I am sure that this is accepted by the Committee—that there would be an open-minded discussion in Committee and that we would seek to mend fences.
I was making the point that putting me on the Committee was a disservice because more eloquent hon. Members with knowledge of education would have been able to speak to the Minister in greater detail and might have brought peace. I do not think that that is helpful—and it is no laughing matter. The futures of a lot of youngsters are at stake. If we are so tightly divided in the House that a Government with a majority of 161 can only win by five votes, there must be common sense that we do not want to return to Report or Third Reading unless we have moved closer together.
I support amendment No. 82 and wish to comment on amendment No. 3, because they both deal with important issues. I am glad that the break gave hon. Members some chance to forget the excellent contribution that was made before it—so that my contribution does not pale in comparison—but I cannot fault it in spirit, sympathy and objectives, even though it was made by a political opponent, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). I wish that I had made it. If I had made as good a contribution—and I am certainly not going to—and got such a reception, I would think that there was no hope for the Bill. If that contribution is ignored, sneered at and paid no attention to, we will clearly make no movement on variability. The decision has clearly been taken to introduce a market in education, and the traumatic time that Labour Members went through—I do not know about the Opposition—will be rerun. That is not something that I view with pleasure, in either an individual or, above all, a party sense.
I hope that the points of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge will be responded to not just in words or argument, as the argument will then continue elsewhere. I point out that the majority was five. One Member did not vote because his wife was ill that day, so I would consider the majority to be four. A number of hon. Members voted for Second Reading on the basis that there would be further serious discussions.