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World Class Skills 2020

First, I would like to clarify the fact that the 42 per cent. participation rate applies to 18 to 30-year-olds; it does not refer just to school leavers. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman is quite right that people make an economic decision. They do so partly because they fear the amount of debt that they will accumulate on graduation, as a result of living costs and the £9,000-worth of fees that they have to pay for most courses. I know many people who would have benefited from, and whose lives would have been transformed by, higher education, but who decided instead to leave school at 18 with good A-levels and go into banking or whatever. They will earn good money, but their lives will be quite different because of the decision, imposed on them by the Government, to avoid extra debt.