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Sale of Student Loans Bill

In response to the Minister's assertion that there is consensus about the Bill and the student loans system, I do not wish to disillusion him or to undermine our admiration for his powers of persuasion, but some of us do not support student loans or the Government's legislative proposal because it further embeds the student loans system. That system has brought about an average debt of £15,000 for most students, which on average they take 13 years to pay off. The Minister's response was that the system had enabled a larger number of people to pursue a university education. My view, and that of many of my colleagues, is that in the fifth richest country in the world we should be able to afford to pay people proper maintenance grants to enable them to access university education on the scale that the Government envisage—50 per cent. of young people. To drive people into debt in this way not only burdens them with that debt, but undermines their enjoyment of the education that they receive while they are at university. Apart from consolidating the student loans system even further, the Bill causes other anxieties. We know from the Red Book that it is envisaged that the Bill will raise £6.3 billion, but nowhere in the Bill does that sum become hypothecated to funding education; it could go elsewhere. If we are to sell off an educational asset that has been brought in as a result of the educational provision that we make for our students, that money should be used for higher education. As is shown by some of the information that we have heard today, which I accept the Minister contests, the bursary system is not working as effectively as it should. We could use the money from the sale to increase maintenance grants at the same time—to improve provision overall. The Bill allows the Secretary of State to retain control over the interest charges levelled against students who take out student loans, but it does not address the key issue—the bizarre situation of the Government's using so many different measures of inflation and interest rates to charge against loans. We use the consumer prices index, currently at 2 per cent., to award wages but the retail prices index to determine how much we levy on the burden of loans. I regret that the legislation did not address that matter. I am not convinced that we have enhanced the Secretary of State's role within the system to give us in the long term the security that we have sought today. I am thinking particularly about onward sales, which are one of our key anxieties. If it is important to secure the detailed involvement and approval of the Secretary of State on the initial sale, it is even more important that we secure his involvement on onward sales. That might offend against Treasury rules, but as was mentioned earlier, when it comes to Northern Rock and other matters, Treasury rules seem to fly out of the window. I hope that further safeguards will be applied in the other place and that we then debate them here to provide the maximum long-term security—not only for those who take out and rely on student loans, but for the taxpayer as well.