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Sale of Student Loans Bill

I accept what the Minister says. I am looking to the future rather than to the past, and we want to learn lessons from the legislative processes that we have been through. The explanatory notes give the student loan book a value of £18.1 billion. Lord Triesman’s office has informed my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) that that is an England-only figure and that the Wales figure is £1.1 billion. It would be helpful if the Minister confirmed those figures in Committee or at some other stage. I would be interested to learn what representations the Minister and his Department have received from the Welsh Assembly. I understand that there is little appetite in Wales for using these powers. I might be wrong about that, but it would be interesting to hear about any representations that have been made to the Minister along those lines. The powers are mirror powers—we are learning to use that technical term. They give Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government the same powers, and no more, as the powers that could be exercised by Ministers here. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) asked where the money raised by the sale of the student loans book would go. When he was making that point, I wondered where any sum raised by the sale of the Wales student loan book would go if Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government used the powers that are intended for them. Would the money stay with the Assembly or be taken back to Westminster? If the money stayed with the Assembly, what could the Assembly use it for? Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government might be encouraged to use powers given to them if they felt that they could use the money in a constructive and positive manner. In general, Liberal Democrats would prefer to have framework powers in this type of legislation rather than mirror powers. We shall be interested to see in Committee how the Minister will respond under scrutiny to such sentiments.