Conditions that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
11:15 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 agree with my hon. Friend. He makes the point strongly that widening access is not a peripheral issue but is central to the Bill.
I always enjoy the anecdotes told by the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) about the halcyon days when the Conservative party had a policy on higher education. The F in HEFCE does not stand for fiddling around. The hon. Gentleman spoke about bureaucracy, and about HEFCE having funding pots. He is being unfair. There have been several so-called ring-fenced jam pots—they have now been smashed—but they were not HEFCE's fault. It was an unfair allegation.
The hon. Member for Daventry said that it is unclear who enforces the fee caps, but I hope that I have made that plain. He asked also about the cost. We say in the regulatory impact assessment that the average cost will be £500,000 a year for the whole of OFFA. Much of that cost will arise during the bulge period when the access plans are agreed, but it will be spread over time.
The hon. Member for Hertsmere is concerned about admissions. OFFA will have nothing to do with admissions; it will deal with access, as we said in the White Paper and the widening participation document that we published in the summer. By and large, the problem is not with admissions, but a separate review group is considering some of the problems with improving attainment. The problem of widening access is with applications, as the sector recognises.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale asked how many people in the sector support our policies. I could make a cheap political point and say, ''More than supported the Conservative party's policies—when they had them—on where to go next.'' It is fair to say that there is some controversy about the regulator, but there is no controversy whatever about universities saying that they could do more to improve applications. The Russell group and the 1994 group accept that there is more that can be done.