Higher Education Fees

Indeed I do. I apologise for that, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank you for calling me. I am a new Member in this House—obviously—but there are some things that I have learned in the short number of months that I have been here. When proposals come before us, I always ask two questions: first, can we stick with the status quo and bury our heads in the sand; and secondly, can we put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today? The conclusion that I have come to on the proposals before us is that the answer to both those questions is no. The current funding model for higher education is simply not providing enough money to support the growing number of students who want to go on to higher education. As it stands, we turned away just under 200,000 young people this year. Funding per student is now lower in real terms than it was 20 years ago. As someone once said, ““We can't go on like this.”” [Interruption.] Opposition Members may want to listen. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday, we cannot allow our universities to fall behind the rest of the world. India is building new technology institutes and new universities, and in the next 15 years the number of graduates from Chinese universities is expected to grow fivefold, so what do we do? Do we turn millions more young people—people like me—away from aspiring to go to university? I do not want to send that message out from this House. If that is what the Opposition have decided, that is their decision, but it is certainly not mine. Do we just increase state funding to higher education, so that fees can either stay as they are or, as some in this House would like, be abolished altogether? We know that we cannot do that because, once again, the country faces ruin after a Labour Government. As Mr Blair's new Government proved, simply increasing the money from the Exchequer was not possible in '97, when we had a fantastic economy, which was bequeathed to Labour, and it is certainly not possible with the wrecked economy that we face today.