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Sale of Student Loans Bill

My Lords, the amendments are a version of something that we called for on Report, and it is pleasing to see the willingness of the Government to listen to this side of the House. Indeed, that has been a marked feature of every stage of this process, for which the Minister deserves our gratitude. The willingness of the Minister to respond to our scrutiny is testament to her open-mindedness and is an example of the way in which the parliamentary process is meant to work. I still feel that there are a few questions that need to be answered, and I will get straight to the point. First, this is a minor point, which I hope will be taken up in the other place if I cannot get an adequate answer today. How will the independence of the report be guaranteed? Is there any way to ensure that the Treasury does not give guidance to make a sale look like there is value for money, when a more independent source would have disagreed? What is the precise nature of the guidance that is expected? This morning, I listened to the segment on the ““Today”” programme about the sale of QinetiQ to the Carlyle Group, which the National Audit Office claims lost the taxpayer £90 million. The Government seem to defend the sale to the hilt, claiming that there was in fact value for money for the taxpayer, despite independent evidence to the contrary. That seems to me to be a gloomy foreshadowing of where we might be with the student loan sale. In fact, what I heard on the radio was precisely what I warned against on Report. I repeat for the record that, if the report intimates that the taxpayer has lost out in any way and the Government try to persuade the public that this was the best deal in the current climate, or that in fact it was better than expected, that would be wholly unacceptable and deeply discouraging. It would annihilate any trust that taxpayers may cling to when it comes to safeguarding their money. I do not want to be the student loan Cassandra, but I have grave suspicions that I will be hearing a similar argument on the radio about the student loan book in the all-too-near future. That leads me to my second question, which is about the fact that the Government have already spent the £3.4 billion that has been budgeted. It is my understanding that the sale of student loans this year must yield something near to that amount. Is that inaccurate? Was the projected revenue just a guess appended to the Comprehensive Spending Review, or was it factored into government spending? Will the Government have to sell more loans to generate this sort of money? The assurances have been in the form of the repetition of the claim that the Government are committed to a vigorous value-for-money framework. My overriding question is how, considering the current market, it would be possible to give such a guarantee. Are there any investment analysts who think that now, or even soon, would be the best time to sell? I understand that the Minister took advice from Deutsche Bank regarding ways to make the loans more commercially attractive. At any time in the discussion, did it indicate that this was the best possible time to sell the debt? The answer to that question is extremely important. In the interest of establishing how ready the Government would be to wait to sell the loans to guarantee value for money, I should like to hear the answer to a final question. What would happen if the Government waited two years to sell the loans? Would the Government have to find the £3.4 billion from somewhere else? While a report is a welcome step in the right direction, it is by no means close to the destination—real confidence that the taxpayer is not going to be hurt.