Speeches by Glen.

“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 …”

“The grant to universities.”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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?”

“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?”

“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…”

“Is that a two-out-of-10 situation, or an eight-out-of-10 situation? How good is it on a scale of one to 10?”

“Mr Gardner, briefly, do you think that students have enough information to make a good choice about the course they take, the quality of teaching, future earnings and all those relevant features that are based on the other side, when they have this big bill at the end?”

“What I mean is more the choice of course—not the loan, but the choice of course.”

“Underpinning this is that much of the cost sits with a student. The underpinning intellectual idea is the large amount of student choice. Is that student choice informed in your view, Mr Stanley?”

“Mr Stanley, a student going to university and taking out one of those loans is entering into one of the top three financial decisions of their life. They would want to be well informed. We have talked a lot about the loan side; let us talk about the university side. Do you think that students have access to clear and t…”

“This is my last question. What I am trying to get at is that, given where we are in terms of the public finances, realistically the notion that there is going to be a significant or even meaningful uplift in this budget is very optimistic. If you broadly say that the numbers are about the same, or go up with inflation,…”

“Essentially, spend more money?”

“Thank you, Mr Walters. Mr Stanley, is there anything that you would like to add on the overall cost of university and how it is distributed?”