Speeches by Rigby.

“I am afraid that you will have to forgive me, Chair. I do not think it would be right for me to comment on that, or indeed—”

“Of all the people I would consider gazumping on an announcement, the Prime Minister would be the last. I know that he has been clear that, exactly as you said Chair, the defence investment plan will be published before the NATO summit.”

“Or answer some questions.”

“I saw.”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“I think it is critically important that the information that is provided to students is accurate and done so in a plain-English version, which is indeed the standard you would expect in other contexts as well. I wholly appreciate the strength of feeling that the Committee has heard in relation to this issue and it is i…”

“Again, I defer to your understanding and indeed to Baroness Smith’s understanding, but I think I am right in saying that the general principles of the FCA should apply and indeed do apply to student finance. In that context, if you wanted to make a judgment about this, you could. But I am simply telling you that I do n…”

“I think I am right in saying that the CCA does not apply to—”

“I didn’t mean that! Baroness Smith was speaking with a degree of familiarity as to how loans have been provided, and the documentation. Indeed, she made the good point, of course, that she cannot answer for decisions that previous Governments have made. But I am simply not familiar with exactly what information was pro…”

“I have to be honest that I am not as familiar as Baroness Smith is with the historical nature of the—[Interruption.]”

“I thought you were going to mention my role prior to that, which was Solicitor General, and ask if I had a legal assessment.”

“That I appreciate it, as I hope I have made clear in my answers, but that it is important to bear in mind some of the features of student finance that we have discussed: the repayment rate of 9%, the thresholds being set where they are on the interest rates and the various parameters of the loans. A key feature is that…”

“I think I am right in saying that having a student loan adds about 9%. Ultimately, at root, we as a Government want to see a progressive system for income tax, which we have. We also want to be able to provide student finance in as fair a way as possible, with the aims that Baroness Smith has set out: to allow people t…”

“More from the point of view of easing the position that some graduates are in, particularly those on plan 2. That would be the driver from my point of view.”

“I do not mind answering. I think the Chancellor has said this as well, but if it was open to us from the wider point of view within the envelope of fiscal responsibility to make some of these changes to the levers that we have been discussing, I certainly would push us to do that. I would come back to some of the respo…”

“The blunt answer is that we inherited what we inherited, and that is how we arrived at the situation that we are in. As we have talked through, we would not have designed some of these parameters in the way they currently exist otherwise. The more direct answer to your question is that none of us are sat with a blank s…”

“That is a really good question, and it goes back to the issues that we were discussing at the outset about the value of education to society as a whole but also to individuals who take out loans and go to university. As we have been discussing, we are still in a position where less than half of young people go to unive…”

“That is absolutely right. I have not, to date, waxed lyrical about just how incredible our university sector is. We have four of the 10 leading universities in the world, and the sector is a huge contributor to economic growth domestically, in addition to all the other reasons why education is a huge contributor to eco…”

“I think in the question you asked at the outset you referred to partially privatise being a feature as well. My understanding of the classification is such that, for methodological reasons, our system is characterised as having a higher contribution, but obviously it is the state fronting the money in the way that we h…”

“I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for his kind comments. I appreciate where he is trying to go with his remarks, but what we are doing with this announcement is saving the average motorist over £120 this year, compared with the plans that we inherited. By saying—as the Prime Minister has—that we are going to …”