Speeches by Glen.

“What do you think about students’ understanding of the terms and conditions and the changes to them? Do you survey students at different stages in their journey through this process, and do you have any evidence about what they think about what has happened?”

“I want to address the issue of changing terms and conditions. The Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 essentially gives freedom to any future Government to change the terms and conditions of the loan. Mr Stanley, what do you think about that? What do students feel about it in terms of the changes that have happened—…”

“Mr Whelton, do you have any comments on this from the point of view of intergenerational fairness?”

“The grant to universities.”

“And don’t pay much income tax.”

“In reality, if somebody is in that position where essentially they are earning more money, so they have to pay more money back, it affects their behaviour, and it has an impact on the economy, including productivity. Do you have any observations about that, or is that just a relatively small cohort of the overall group…”

“Let’s turn to the overall costs. Kate, do you have a figure for the total subsidy that the Government provide to higher education?”

“I have been in the Treasury and recognise that depiction of it, but is there not now a situation where the graduates of the universities that you represent have reached a point of, “This can’t go on”? I heard George Osborne say that we started taking a little bit here and there but it has gone too far. How would you re…”

“You would focus on plan 2—”

“Let me try to simplify this for people watching: we have different plans and then different distribution of subsidy levels in different student cohorts in each plan. It is difficult to break down into an overall fairness: are you someone earning £50,000 at 30 on a plan 2, or are you earning £32,000 perpetually on a pla…”

“Because they cannot bear the cross-subsidies.”

“We may well do that, but I draw your attention to what Sir Philip said in his review, Ms Stern: “Generous and undirected funding has led to an over-supply of some courses at great cost to the taxpayer and a corresponding under-supply of graduates in strategically important sectors.” You obviously have to represent all …”

“May I ask you to respond to that, Sir Philip? I think Ms Stern has given a very good example of the change in perception of a course. When you make this judgment of unproductive and productive, how do you take account of the unpredictability of the evolving needs of the economy, but also do justice to the fact that you…”

“I want to focus on the marginal tax rates that effectively prevail for some of these graduates, because the evidence suggests that what we are actually doing is leaving some in their 20s and 30s with some of the highest effective marginal tax rates. Ms Ogden, would you set the scene for discussion on this subject? What…”

“So in effect, if it was a conventional financial services product, the Government would be at risk of regulatory and legal action, wouldn’t they? By “the Government”, I mean all Governments, not this particular one.”

“Could I turn to the issue of changing terms and conditions? Sir Philip, you have a background in financial services. Obviously we recognise that section 22(2)(g) of the Teaching and Higher Education Act explicitly permits the modification of loan terms “during the currency of such loans”, but when we did our survey, we…”

“DfE promotional materials in 2020-21—so they were for plan 2—explicitly promised that the repayment threshold would be “adjusted annually in line with average earnings”. That has not happened, has it?”

“Ms Stern, do you have anything to say about the impact that the changing terms and conditions have had on students? Do you think that students understand the conditions of their loans and that they could be changed, as they have been?”

“Thank you. That sets the scene, which I hope Sir Philip and Ms Stern will be able to respond to to address how that compares to other countries and whether it is the right level. This is really what we need to get to the heart of: how much are we, as a society and a prevailing Government, spending on this, how much is …”

“Can I just ask one other question on this subject? When you look at the different plans and the different changes to thresholds and rates and so on, given that all Governments have finite resources, where would you recommend that this Committee look in terms of the worst changes in terms and conditions and regarding wh…”