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Mr. Allen: I am prepared to accept that the amendment is technically defective. However, the overall aim is to regear repayments from a base of £20,000, which would net the same amount of fees. Will my right hon. Friend drop me a line to tell me how severely that would effect the repayments from £20,000 upwards?
Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In the light of the fact that the Minister has placed it on record that the amendment as worded would cost about £430 million, does hon. Gentleman accept that that is probably a greater additional public spending commitment than he had hoped for or intended? Might he come back on Report with a slightly differently worded amendment that is designed to make progress along the line that he has set out, but at rather less cost? A lot of people would be intrigued if that were to be his view.
Mr. Allen: I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, ''Advice is the most precious gift of all because it is normally given by those who need it most themselves.'' Rather than take policy lessons from the Conservatives—as they keep telling us, they do not have any policies at the moment—I will sit on the hon. Gentleman's suggestion. However, rather than table more amendments on Report—I am sure that the colleagues to whom I have referred will do that anyway—I will rest with leaving it with the Minister to see what the gearing effect would be. It would certainly be more than 9 per cent., but I wonder whether it would be way over the top in terms of repayments.
Chris Grayling: The hon. Gentleman may be swimming against the tide. Is he aware that the Government's policy, as set out in the small print of the regulatory impact assessment, is to shift the relationship between the threshold and earnings in the other direction, as one of the means of paying for the improvements made to the student support package in the rest of the Government's proposals?
Mr. Allen: I am very grateful for that information.
To finish, I light-heartedly mentioned officials on a couple of occasion. I want to put on record that the officials who I have dealt with on the Bill have been very open and have been extremely helpful in helping
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hon. Members come to terms with a difficult Bill. I thank them.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 40 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 41
Transfer of certain functions to National Assembly for Wales
Chris Grayling: I beg to move amendment No. 287, in
Before we kick off, Mr. Gale, I seek clarification about clause stand part. It seems to me that dealing with the essence of the amendment will bring us quite close to the subject area that would be covered in a clause stand part debate. I seek your guidance on that.
The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point: this is the only amendment to the clause that has been selected for discussion. I am happy to accommodate a clause stand part debate as part of the debate on this amendment. That would seem to make eminent sense.
While I am on my feet, for the convenience of Members, I should inform the Committee that at 5.35 pm I intend to suspend the sitting until 6 o'clock. I suspect that that will accommodate a Division on the Floor of the House. I believe that there is likely to be one Division only, but if there is a second, the Committee will resume 15 minutes after its start.
Chris Grayling: Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Gale. I begin my remarks with an apology to the Minister. He is right to say that I cast false aspersions on him this morning. He rightly reminded the Committee about the important debate on Welsh issues that took place when we discussed clause 21. However, it is a shame that when I sought to raise the issue of fees in relation to Wales, the Chairman at that time, Mr. Hood, said:
''We are not discussing the levels of fees at present; we are discussing the plans. I ask the hon. Gentleman to stay in order.''—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 12 February 2004; c. 126.]
When the Minister was questioned about a number of issues in relation to Wales, he said:
''That question has nothing to do with the amendments that we are debating. We are talking about the meaning of a plan.''—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 12 February 2004; c. 138.]
The Minister is right: we have had a debate about the meaning of a plan in Wales. Sadly, however, I waited in vain to hear more of his eloquent contributions and to debate with him as we went through later clauses, including clause 25, which gave the Assembly powers to impose conditions around fees; clause 26, on conditions that may be required to be imposed by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales; clause 27, on the actions that the Assembly can take; and clause 28, on the definition of ''the relevant authority'' for Wales. I continued to wait in vain as we discussed an amendment to prevent potential injustices affecting English students in Wales, Welsh issues
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relating to clause 31, and Welsh regulations in clause 38. Perhaps the Minister understands why I am so disappointed not to have heard his views on those important issues, and why I welcome this belated chance to address at least some of the issues of student support in Wales. I simply regret that we have not been able to do more to debate the fundamental change that is taking place, which certainly deserves full consideration by this Committee.
Clause 41 deals with the provision of student finance support to students living in Wales. It is central to the future of student support in Wales, not least because the Secretary of State clearly stated on Second Reading that he considers the reappearance of grants, and the positioning of grants at the heart of policy in Westminster and the Assembly, as an integral part of the introduction of top-up fees and the package that we have been debating throughout this Committee. The devolution of grant finance—the right to set grants and the right to offer loans in Wales—is therefore integral to our debates and an integral part of the Government's decision to devolve those powers to Wales. The Secretary of State said of the grants:
''This £3,000 package will ensure that no student qualifying for the higher education grant will be any worse off as a result of variable fees, and many will be better off.''—[Official Report, 27 January 2004; Vol. 417, c. 173.]
In debating this clause, it is extremely important that we understand the impact on students in Wales of the Government's proposals and the Assembly's current position on fees. We must also understand the effect on the financial position of Welsh students when the Assembly takes over the power to offer grants to students. There might be injustices on Welsh campuses if different cohorts of students are in different financial positions as they go through their studies. We might even see a situation similar to that in Scotland, where English students pay higher fees than their counterparts in Scotland. It is a completely unjust situation in which they must resource themselves much more substantially than students from Scotland who are studying at the same universities. What happens to students in Wales as a result of the Government's changes to the student support package is an extremely important matter that the Committee needs to consider carefully.
I look forward to understanding clearly the Under-Secretary's rationale for such changes. In the past 12 months, the hon. Gentleman and I have debated Welsh devolution on three occasions: in debates on the Health (Wales) Bill and on the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill, which introduced foundation hospitals, and now in connection with the Higher Education Bill. His views were well summed up by his comments in Committee on 12 February 2004 when, perhaps expressing a little exasperation at having to deal with such arguments, he said:
''In the interests of supporting devolution—God help us and protect my sanity''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 12 February 2004; c. 138.]
The Under-Secretary's recourse in such debates is always to say that we must protect devolution and that
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everything is about the devolution settlement. I hope, this afternoon, as we debate devolution of the power to set the student support package, that the hon. Gentleman will tell us why it will be of benefit to the people of Wales and how their position will be improved by such measures.
On many occasions, I have said that when they devolve powers to Wales, the Government create duplication, inconsistencies and, above all, cost. Undoubtedly, I will make a similar argument now. Will the hon. Gentleman explain what benefit this Bill will deliver to the people of Wales? Rather than base his argument simply on a theory of devolution and that being a good thing, will he say what tangible, practical benefits the measure will bring to Wales? Surely that should be the benchmark by which to measure whether the House should devolve a power to the Welsh Assembly.
Mr. Collins: My hon. Friend may care to note that one tangible benefit that arises from the transfer of such matters to the Welsh Assembly is that it has decided that top-up fees will not be introduced until 2007. Does he agree that it is unlikely that the Under-Secretary will cite that as an advantage?
Chris Grayling: That is indeed unlikely, and my hon. Friend makes an important point. The Welsh Assembly Government have made a virtue of publicly stating their determination to keep to their manifesto commitments slightly more clearly than others whom we have encountered during our proceedings.
When deciding whether it is appropriate to devolve a power to the Welsh Assembly, the Committee and the House should ask the fundamental question: what practical benefit will the people of Wales derive from such power? Will it genuinely improve their material situation, or is it simply being done for ideological reasons? Will the Under-Secretary set those questions at the heart of his remarks? In previous debates he has not dealt adequately with the practical benefits of change; I hope that he will do so today.
We are dealing with a set of changes that might create minefields in several areas. The most fundamental point is that we are not dealing with two separate systems of higher education. Suggestions have been made that that is what the Assembly Government aspire to, but the practical reality is that we are a single country that witnesses great flows of students. We just have to look at the mix of study patterns for Welsh students to realise that it is not a matter of saying, ''Well, this happens in Wales and that happens in England, so we will draw a line between the two and we will have two separate systems.'' In Wales, in 2001–02—the last year for which figures are available—there were 59,685 full-time students: 43 per cent. were English-domiciled, and 55 per cent. Welsh-domiciled. There were 43,055 part-time students attending higher education institutions in Wales: 81 per cent. were Welsh, as one would expect, given the nature of part-time study, but even in that sector, 18 per cent. of the students were English.
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5.15 pm
Let us consider individual institutions. I have referred before to the university of Wales, in Aberystwyth, where 68 to 70 per cent. of undergraduates are from England. The figure varies across Wales and is much higher at the university of Glamorgan, where 77.9 per cent. of students are from Wales and 12.6 per cent. from England.
That demonstrates that the situation is very fluid and that students exercise choice. Students from Wales do not see themselves as Welsh students for the purposes of higher education. Like any other students, they rightly look at all the available options and decide where to go without regard to whether an institution is in Wales. Interestingly, I suspect that the higher percentage at the university of Glamorgan reflects a pattern that is typical of some more modern universities. Even so, a substantial block of English students come to Wales, because they have that as the best option for them.
In the Bill, we are giving the Assembly the power to set different grant levels and to have a Welsh loan regime, so we must give full consideration to the implications of that.
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