Student Finance

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 4:22 pm on 4 November 1997.

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Photo of David Blunkett David Blunkett Secretary of State for Education and Employment, Member, Labour Party National Executive Committee 4:22, 4 November 1997

I have not pretended for a minute that we have found for the coming year the amount of money that Sir Ron Dearing had in his checklist. I do not duck that issue at all. We have identified resources from our own Budget, in imaginative ways that previously were not available, which fall within the Government's overall control totals, and which allows us to get the programme into being from September 1998, and immediately to trigger in from 1999 onwards the savings—and therefore the income—which otherwise would not be available.

If we were not doing that, we would lose £100 million in 1999, increasing to £800 million in 2005–06, even under present accountancy procedures. If we moved to resource accounting, the sums would come much earlier, in terms of just over £1,000 million by 2002–03. This is the programme for raising the resources to lift the cap, to open up access, to target under-represented groups, to give opportunity to those who are denied it and to invest in lifelong learning and the knowledge-based society of the future.

I was grateful to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) for drawing attention to the interesting division that exists between Conservative Members in their policy on this issue. We have a policy from the shadow Secretary of State, we have a policy from the candidate in the Winchester by-election, and we have a policy from those hon. Members who should know better, who have experience in these areas, such as the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson). Responding to my statement of 23 July, he said:

I congratulate the Government on the statement … the Government have taken a courageous decision, which should be supported by everyone who has universities' interests at heart. He was an ex-Education Minister, so he would at least have some idea.

Even the forthright right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the immediate ex-Minister in the Department, said: I welcome the general thrust of the Dearing report and much of what the Secretary of State said".

What about the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor)? He said: The Secretary of State is to be congratulated on grasping some of' Dearing' s radical aspects, including the deferred contribution of students to tuition fees."—[Official Report, 23 July 1997; Vol. 298, c. 955-61.]

I know that there are several Conservative parties on the issue of monetary union and Europe in general. I had not realised, however, that there are three, not two, Opposition parties on the issue of student maintenance and student fees. I do not know what the policy of the former hon. Member for Winchester, Mr. Malone, would be if he were elected for Winchester. I do not know whether he would have a free vote on that issue, or whether, if he were co-opted to the shadow Cabinet immediately, it would be demanded of him that he change his mind only when the Leader of the Opposition changes his mind, and never if the ex-Chancellor and ex-Deputy Prime Minister lead him astray. I do know that the shadow Cabinet will remain a shadow for a very long time to come, because it is in a shambles.