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Higher Education

No, I am sorry. If we can develop a more egalitarian, less hierarchical and less elitist secondary school system, it follows as night follows day that more young people will achieve more at 14, 16 and 18 in a way that will provide them with an automatic route into university. They will not all be studying philosophy, politics and economics or ancient history at Oxbridge, but a range of important subjects. The progression from school to university, however, will become more automatic and inevitable if we lift the level of talent of all our pupils, and if the choice of school has less effect on the eventual outcome. The 14 to 19 reforms are a hugely important development, which relates directly to the widening of participation in universities. It is regrettable that the Government did not adopt Mike Tomlinson’s report in its totality. I hope, however, that the issue remains on the table for the future. We make a mistake, however, if we believe that the key to the problem is somehow to get parity between the vocational and the academic. As long as the academic subjects lead to the kinds of careers that pay two, three, four or even 10 times as much as those to which the vocational subjects lead, parents and students will never be convinced of parity. The key lies in eliminating the nonsensical concepts of vocational and academic. [Interruption.] I am delighted that the hon. Member for Henley agrees. Medicine, of course, is the classic example of a vocational subject. For decade after decade, our system has produced people who know every fine detail of the history of the Peloponnesian wars, but who cannot change a plug or switch on the dishwasher. It is critical that rather than trying to get parity between the two concepts, which we will not achieve, we eliminate those concepts and develop a new framework and set of terms of reference to describe the different natures of learning reflected in the practical and the conceptual. On costs and fees, among the most important steps forward in the past 10 years to a more egalitarian education system were the introduction of tuition fees in universities in 1999, and the extension of those fees by raising the maximum level to £3,000 for 2006. Those were hugely controversial steps. Once the effects have been analysed in four years’ time, when the first cohort of students will have gone through the new system with a maximum £3,000 fee, I believe that the case will be made for raising the cap. We cannot continue to finance a world-class university system largely on the back of the taxpayer. We need different sources of funding, to which fee income will contribute. I also find it impossible to understand how anyone who believes that it is reasonable to pay a fee for a child’s secondary education should find that the taxpayer pays the largest part of the fee for that child’s university education. That is completely and utterly illogical. Raising the cap will be an important and high-profile political issue three or four years from now. Finally, may I make a plea that the Government do it differently next time? We cannot just sit back as we did last time, and subcontract the decision to Sir Ron Dearing or some other expert. We cannot just have an external analysis of the impact of raising fees on the first cohort, and then try to push the change through Parliament. We must prepare the ground and develop a better understanding among Members of the three main parties represented here and among the wider public, parents and students. We should start discussing the arguments for and against raising the cap. We should not leave it to the last minute. We must do the groundwork so that in 2010, when I believe that the case will have been made for raising the cap in a careful and regulated way—and in a way that provides sufficient scholarships and bursaries so that no applicant from a low-income background feels that they cannot go to university—that change will become part of the new consensus in an expanding, thriving and internationally competitive university system.