Clause 23 - Condition that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)
I am grateful for the intervention and for the offer of support. Even for a probing amendment, we should bank the assistance we have. I will be absolutely honest: I have not considered that point specifically. The hon. Gentleman is right that there is growing dematerialisation of university courses—where they come from, how they are charged, what the interface is—which is an inevitable consequence of an electronic world. We need not upset the Minister by going into the relative failure of the e-university in uptake yet, but a reality is that people have interface. Another reality—and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) is on to this point as well—is that institutions under pressure and anxious to raise funds will raise them from wherever they can. As long as they can get it past the regulations, they will tend to charge. Indeed, there may well be cases where it is necessary to limit traffic and it is proper for them to charge.
Can the Minister first say a little bit about how that part of the Act has worked since 1998? Why was there a recent updating and how much does that reflect either problems or the electronic developments to which the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) referred? How much are the doctrines and experience of that period since 1998, in relation to basic fees, being translated into the new legislation to apply to both basic and variable fees? That is a straightforward discussion. I think it is one that Universities UK would appreciate, and I certainly would like some kind of answer and assurance on it.
The second layer of the problem relates to board and lodging fees, which, as the Minister will know, are excluded from control and will continue to be excluded under the legislation. I fully understand why Ministers do not want to start trying to tie down board and lodging fees or to regulate them through HEFCE, the access regulator or anyone else. This is a very invidious area. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) will remember the campaign that ran about 18 months ago against colleges in her university city allegedly seeking to recover costs by bumping up the board and lodging fees charged to students.
As the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) said the other day, £3,000 is about one fifth—20 per cent. or so—of £15,000, which, allegedly, is what Oxford university would like to charge. Oxford university is our former alma mater and is almost equidistant between us. It is possible that a residential university that believed itself to be blocked at £3,000 and was bent on recovering money from students would find it very attractive to say, ''All right. The Minister has capped us at £3,000. We believe we need a larger sum. We'll get it back in board and lodging fees, or through another charge.''