Clause 23 - Condition that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies

Part of Higher Education Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:30 pm on 26 February 2004.

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Photo of Alan Johnson Alan Johnson Minister of State (Education and Skills) (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education) 4:30, 26 February 2004

My information is that radiographers do not pay any fees as they are exempt per se.

We believe the framework in primary legislation should be the same for all students, but there is a serious problem here. The wording of this amendment, even if it was not flawed and was perfectly reasonable in all other respects, would interfere with a university's charging policy. More importantly, it would transfer

the financial obligation to meet the cost of those students from the employers to the universities. At the moment, the university charges a fee, but that is paid on behalf of the student by the NHS or the DFES. This amendment says that students would not be charged the fee in the first place, meaning that the universities would have to pay for them, which would be entirely wrong.