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)
Your ruling is absolutely correct, Mr. Gale.
The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough is far ahead of me analytically, and he found four objectives in the Bill. I could find only three—they relate to the funding gap, the introduction of a market and social inclusion—apart from the other padding that has been thrown in to make the Bill look half-decent in size, detain us for another week and keep my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington and myself out of jam money.
Many of my hon. Friends and I object to two of those objectives: the fee increase and the introduction of the market. The Government's real intention is the basis of the amendment. The Bill is genuinely about putting a market in the education system through variable fees. That is sad, because the other two objectives then become questionable, as they damage the third, which is social inclusion—