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Vol. 745 Monday No. 10 3 June 2013 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDER OF BUSINESS Message from the Queen .................................................................................................927 Deaths of Members: Lord Northfield and Lord Gilbert .............................................927 Questions Education: Student Loans ............................................................................................927 Education: Part-Time University Study.......................................................................930 Legal Aid.......................................................................................................................932 Violent Extremism.........................................................................................................935 Local Transport Act 2008 (Traffic Commissioners) (Consequential Amendments) Order 2013 Motion to Approve ........................................................................................................937 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill Second Reading..............................................................................................................937 Woolwich and the EU Council Statement........................................................................................................................969 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill Second Reading (Continued) ........................................................................................980 Grand Committee Licensing Act 2003 (Descriptions of Entertainment) (Amendment) Order 2013 Considered in Grand Committee.......................................................................... GC 115 EUC Report: EU External Action Service Motion to Take Note .......................................................................................... GC 120 EUC Report: EU Sugar Regime Motion to Take Note .......................................................................................... GC 148 Written Statements......................................................................................................WS 83 Written Answers ...........................................................................................................WA 99 £4·00 Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. The bound volumes also will be sent to those Peers who similarly notify their wish to receive them. No proofs of Daily Reports are provided. 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All prices are inclusive of postage. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2013, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 927 Message from the Queen[3 JUNE 2013] Education: Student Loans 928 Baroness Garden of Frognal: My Lords, the House of Lords Government are investigating ways of making repayments from overseas easier and of clamping down on those Monday, 3 June 2013. who evade their responsibilities, and we will introduce measures as soon as we can. It might be worth pointing 2.30 pm out that of the total amounts of student loans, only Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Derby. 3% to 4% go to EU students. Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, is the Minister Message from the Queen aware that student loans in the USA, publicly subsidised but largely unregulated, are a means for the enrichment 2.36 pm of banks and poor-quality higher education institutions The Lord Chamberlain (Earl Peel): My Lords, I that are permitted to make profits, whereas in the have the honour to present to your Lordships a message United Kingdom, the student loans system—designed from Her Majesty the Queen, signed by her own hand. by the Government and administered by the Student The message is as follows: Loans Company, which the Government control—has, notwithstanding some flaws, been a source of fairness “I have received with great satisfaction the dutiful and loyal expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I opened the for society as a whole? present Session of Parliament”. Baroness Garden of Frognal: Yes indeed, my Lords, and I can only be grateful that I am not standing here Deaths of Members answering on behalf of the United States’ system— Announcement because I do not have a brief about that. The system was set up to be as fair as possible to the students 2.37 pm whom we wish to encourage to go into higher education if they have the potential and aspiration to do it. The Lord Speaker (Baroness D’Souza): My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the deaths of the noble Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, does my Lord, Lord Northfield, on 18 April, and of the noble noble friend think that enough is done to make students Lord, Lord Gilbert, on 2 June. On behalf of the aware that although they do not have to repay these House I extend our condolences to the noble Lords’ loans until they have employment above a certain families and friends. salary, the interest accumulates immediately? Many of them find themselves facing much larger bills than Education: Student Loans they imagined. Question Baroness Garden of Frognal: One of the really important things, which my noble friend touches on, is 2.37 pm that no student has to pay these fees immediately. Asked by Lord Naseby They start being payable once the students graduate and are in a job where they are earning sufficient To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they money to pay them back, and the payments are then have any proposals to privatise or reorganise the proportionate to their income. However, my noble handling and repayment of student loans. friend is right that we need to do as much as we can to make sure that students are fully clear about the Baroness Garden of Frognal: My Lords, the undertakings they are taking on. Government continue to explore options for monetising student loans and launched a sale of the remaining Lord Bilimoria: My Lords, have the Government mortgage-style student loans in March. Any future done a survey regarding one effect of student loans—the sale of income-contingent repayment student loans fact that students will be burdened with a long-term would take place only if it reduced the Government’s debt of up £40,000 after they graduate? Has it deterred risk exposure to the loan book, represented value for children from going to university, particularly those money for the taxpayer and ensured protection of from family backgrounds where no one has been to borrowers. university before? Are the Government comfortable that we have student loans of this magnitude while in Lord Naseby: My Lords, is my noble friend aware Scotland undergraduates still do not have to pay any that the selling-off of the earlier mortgage book is fees at all? greatly welcomed? However, the current loan book now stands at close to an estimated £40 million and no Baroness Garden of Frognal: The noble Lord mentions fewer than 22% of students from overseas are either the burdensome debt that students are accruing, but I not paying or have disappeared, and that involves a would again stress that they will begin to contribute figure of no less than £50 million. What are the back for what they have gained from their university Government doing about this failure to repay by students education only after they graduate and are earning a who have taken loans, not least because if no further salary. We will be monitoring the effect on students action is taken, that figure of £50 million will rise well from disadvantaged backgrounds. I would also point into the hundreds of millions due to the recent increase out that there are very generous forms of mean-tested in student loans? grants for students, while many universities have instituted 929 Education: Student Loans[LORDS] Education: Part-Time University Study 930 [BARONESS GARDEN OF FROGNAL] from overseas. If there were standard arrangements all sorts of bursaries to try to make absolutely sure such that someone earning dollars could automatically that no student feels disadvantaged because they come have a standing order to convert dollars into sterling from a low-income family. and repay, it would make the admin easier. Secondly, could more attention be given to vocational training Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: My Lords, students after which people’s pay is often higher and they get who took out loans under the previous Government jobs more easily? pay interest based on the base rate plus 1%—so it is currently 1.5%—whereas those who have taken out Baroness