Conditions that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
11:00 am
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education), Department for Education and Skills; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
I am perfectly capable of making a powerful case against my own argument, but I hope that I am not doing so in this case. I do not want to start discussing the principle of OFFA, but I agree that no one has breached the £1,000 fee cap since 1998, and that there has been no change in the mix of social classes gaining access to higher education since 1998. The philosophy behind OFFA, which we will debate
another time, is that we should try to change the social mix while accepting that there is a danger, if we are not careful, of going backwards under a new regime in which universities can charge between nought and £3,000. Members are right to point out that wanting working class kids to go to university and charging £3,000 does not sound right. There are reasons for that, but the regulator is very important in circumstances in which a university can charge up to £3,000.
The Government are putting in a considerable amount of taxpayers' money up front, and we are perfectly entitled to look to public policy to determine how we should approach the issue. If we did not do that, but simply debated on the Committee Corridor increasing the £1,000 fee cap to whatever level—a fixed fee—it would not be the same sort of argument. The Bill places us on different territory.