Sale of Student Loans Bill
11:30 pm
Robert Flello (PPS (Rt Hon Hazel Blears, Secretary of State), Department for Communities and Local Government; Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
I want to pick up on some of the points that my hon. Friend Rob Marris raised. I echo what he said about having a clause that ensured that there was a windfall back to the taxpayer if anything was sold on.
My question relates to the transfer of risk. Perhaps I misunderstood or misheard, but you talked earlier about a contract clause being in place whereby if the threshold was increased, there would be some compensation back to a purchaser. That does not strike me as being a complete transfer of risk if there is something in there that means that the taxpayer can be tapped up for extra money or a compensation payment if the threshold is increased. Given that there is not a complete transfer of risk, why is there not something coming back the other way to ensure that if there is a windfall, a compensatory payment is made the other way?