Higher Education Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 12:30 pm on 13 May 2004.

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Photo of Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Conservative 12:30, 13 May 2004

In moving Amendment No. 38 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 42 and 49. In the interests of making some progress, I will try to be brief. The purpose of these amendments is to add a duty to the governing body of the relevant institution under Clause 23(1) to ensure that those students who are awarded a deferred unconditional place through the UCAS system prior to 1 April 2006 will pay only the basic amount of fees. That means that students who gain a university place and take a gap year will adhere to the current system of fees rather than the one which the Bill seeks to introduce. That follows the precedent set by the Government in the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 which was implemented by Regulation 6(8)(a) of the Education Mandatory Awards Regime. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, is not in her place, but she was responsible for making that concession and at the time she said that students who had,

"an agreed firm or conditional deferred entry place for 1998—taking a 'gap-year' in 1997—will be treated as if they are entering higher education in 1997. This will mean that they will not be required to pay tuition fees for the duration of their course".

I appreciate that the circumstances are slightly different, in so far as the vessel that is this Bill has been spotted on the horizon and has been sailing into port over a longer period of time. However, it does not alter the fact that nowadays most students wish to take a gap year. Indeed, when reading the Scottish papers this morning, I found in the Glasgow Herald—or the Herald as it likes to call itself—a statement about a new initiative by the Scottish Executive to give up to £40 a week to students from poorer families who wish to take a gap year, and marvellous statements from the executive about the importance of gap years.

It could be argued that under the new regime poorer students will be entitled to some support through maintenance grants, and that that would be an improved position from their point of view. However, the fact is that they will face fees which are £2,000 a year more for three years. While people might argue that these will be deferred for payment, that still involves an obligation to pay them off over a 25-year period with a higher effective rate of tax being paid by the graduate, and it must act as a disincentive for some students to take a gap year. I do not need to declare an interest because my youngest daughter is currently studying for her A-levels and will be applying for university on a deferred basis and having a gap year. But were I in that position, I think I would be encouraging my offspring perhaps to consider having a gap year at the end of their university education and not at the beginning. If I were a parent who felt that I did not want my children to start life with large amounts of debt, I would be even more concerned about that. The issue is serious and I hope, even if the Minister cannot tell us today that he would be prepared to accept the amendment, that he will recognise that it matters a great deal.

There is a whole industry out there that exists to put youngsters into all kinds of weird and wonderful places around the world, doing marvellous work. We have seen that most recently demonstrated by some of the younger members of the Royal Family. It would be greatly damaged—I am sure that it is an unintentional consequence—if we found that many of the students were no longer available to take those gap-year places. The organisations clearly would not be able to put people in placements. There is another side effect, which is that, if the whole cohort of people who were previously going to do a gap year decided instead that they would go to university, there would be a huge additional demand in one year. That will mean that many students who would otherwise have got a place on the course that they really wanted to do at the institution to which they really wanted to go would get a rejection notice from UCAS.

For all those reasons, I very much hope that the Minister will think about the matter, discuss it with his colleagues, and come back with a proposal to repeat what was done on the previous occasion in 1998. We should treat those students who meet the conditions that I have described and who are taking a gap year exactly as though they had started without having a deferred year before beginning university. I beg to move.