| Higher Education Bill
|
|
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend says about potential problems, and I note that he has conceded that no such problems have existed since 1998. However, these much higher fees will now be imposed on students. Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) (Lab): On graduates. Mr. Clappison: Yes, and we all have to accept that. The Government's case is that funds are being provided to try and help graduates meet those fees, but we must also accept that the fees have an effect on student perceptions and decisions. Is it not more important than ever, then, that we should be careful to Column Number: 393 ensure that there are no additional fees on top of those debts that might additionally influence students when they apply to universities?Mr. Boswell: That is a perfectly fair comment, coming from a real lawyer intervening on a barrack-room lawyer. I respect my hon. Friend for the spirit in which he raised that matter. Before we go through the specifics of the amendment, I want to stress that we need to avoid unintended consequences. We need to avoid a theoretical situation in which a higher education institution might exploit an individual student and impose unnecessary burdens that would excite concerns on the Government Benches. Equally, we need to ensure that a clever, well-advised higher education institution could not creep out from under the net of the Minister's intentions and cock a snook at them, thus devaluing and discrediting the whole process. Without prejudice as to whether the process should go ahead, it is important that it should go right. The first point is a simple one. I noticed in the, as ever, helpful briefing on this—Universities UK drew my attention to it—the need to have a debate on the transposition of the provisions of the 1998 Act into this part, and indeed subsequent parts of the Bill, including the definitions clause, clause 38. Although I did not participate in that earlier legislation, I understand that it was spotted then that a fee was not the only thing that could be charged between a student and their institution, and Ministers realised that there could also be other kinds of fees in different institutions, and in particular additional or supplementary fees. The general list was set out in the 1998 Act, which has itself been updated—perhaps the Minister might want to say something about that—and is in effect being transposed into this legislation, although the provisions particular to the 1998 Act are being removed. There was then a rule that fees controlled by the basic and higher limits—of course we did not have variable fees then—included admission, registration, tuition and graduation fees, but excluded those for board and lodging, field trips, the graduation ceremony itself and a number of other items that might be prescribed. It would genuinely be a service to the Committee if the Minister could say a little about how that has worked since 1998 and how it will work under the new regime. These additional fees should either be included in the list—which, if there is a principle, is academically related—or separated from the main academic processes. Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD): The Liberal Democrats will support the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to press this to a vote, but I hope it is by way of a probing amendment rather than anything else. In his research for this amendment, has the hon. Gentleman addressed the issue of information and communications technology within our university sector? A significant element of course materials is now being delivered through ICT, yet charges for ICT facilities on campus, and particularly for those Column Number: 394 students who are studying part-time and are therefore doing a lot of work off campus, are not in fact regulated through the 1998 Act. Is that something that he would like to see included through the amendment?Mr. Boswell: 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.''
2.45 pmMrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge) (Lab): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman in mid-flow, but certain aspects of this case should be pointed out, in fairness to Cambridge university. This will not make me very popular with students in my constituency, but very few students at Cambridge university pay a full market rent for their accommodation. Their accommodation has been absurdly cheap, and subsidised, I suspect, by college fees that the Government are in the process of reducing. The hon. Gentleman should be aware that the rent paid by Cambridge university students is still well below that paid by Anglia polytechnic university students in the same city, often by about £30 a week. Mr. Boswell: I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Lady, because her remarks enable me to deal with any misconception. I was not trying to say whether those students were right or wrong; I was simply aware of the campaign. As she rightly says, it was tied in with the issue of college fees. I corresponded with the vice-chancellor of the day on behalf of one of my constituents, and had a perfectly satisfactory response from him. I am simply saying that it is possible that an institution might seek to supercharge its fees to recover a higher proportion of total income from its students, particularly if that institution were to make residence a condition of running the course. That is the nub of the issue. A collegiate or other institution would have a captive customer if it told a student that he or she must live in its hall of residence or college for a fixed period. It could charge the student whatever it liked, as long as the charge was defensible in some way. That is possible, although I hasten to say to the Minister and others listening that this has not been an actual problem. That brings me to the third layer of the amendment, and to the words ''irregular or eccentric'' fees, which attracted the attention of Universities UK. Members on both sides of the Committee who have ever been in the Whips Office will readily understand irregularity, and we would not want it to be adopted as a practice. I did, of course, mean fees that might be intermittent or set at different levels. Again, that was echoed in the Minister's remarks today about the coincidence of term dates and so on. This is the fantasising part of my amendment, but it needs to be said anyway. The word ''eccentric'' is important. I like it. An interesting dilemma of middle age is deciding whether the people who taught us were eccentrics, and there are no more eccentrics are left, or whether we have joined them without realising. Leaving that speculation aside, I should explain that when I used the word ''eccentric'', which I used in a reasonably precise way, I was thinking of one celestial body orbiting another eccentrically, so that it is near at one point, but then loops off and comes back 76 years later, like Halley's comet. If the Minister is to have this legislation, we want him to it get right. That is why I seek his assurance on the following point, which is what I am really driving at. Suppose that a higher education institution, like my Column Number: 396 fantastical William of Wykeham, were to say, ''Well, we don't like the Minister, we don't like his rules; we're going to do our best to do them down.'' Such an establishment might say, ''We're going to charge £3,000 a year, because that's what he tells us we can charge, but somehow we're going to have a provision—I don't know how we're going to do it, it may be tied to the graduation ceremony, or the issue of a degree certificate, or a subsequent academic reference or otherwise—to surcharge another £3,000 a year. Maybe we'll dress it up so it isn't on an annual basis; maybe we'll charge it after graduation.'' Hence the reference to former students in the amendment. In such circumstances, the whole intention of the legislation would be subverted by some artificial structure, although I accept the Minister's good faith on that. I have no idea whether that would stand up in court, although I do not think that it would stand up morally, or that higher education institutions wish to do it. He has excellent lawyers, so he may be able to tell us.
|
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 2 March 2004 |
