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Higher Education Fees

For the funding of universities, Lord Browne recommended—in a report that the then Labour Government endorsed, I think, in their manifesto—that there should be no cap on university fees and a specific proposal for a clawback mechanism that gave universities an incentive to introduce fees of up to a level of £15,000 a year. That was the report given to the Government. We have rejected those recommendations and proposed instead that we proceed as the statutory instrument describes. That involves the introduction of a fee cap of £6,000, rising to £9,000 in exceptional circumstances. I will now explain the basic economics of that problem in the light of the intervention from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).