I shall very briefly comment, as I have had my arguments referred to by the noble Lord opposite. The graduate repayment scheme is neither conventional public spending, nor is it a commercial loan. All three parties, when faced with the question of how you finance higher education, have concluded that the best way forward is through such an arrangement. If it is public spending, it will be
a low priority, and the funding of universities will suffer. If it is a commercial loan, which now appears to be what the Labour Opposition are calling for, and if we really were to have it regulated under the terms of the convention on private loans, one of the first requirements would be the requirement to know your customer—to make an assessment of an individual recipient to see whether they have the capacity to repay a student loan. The agencies would have to decide whether to lend to any one individual or not, and disadvantaged students would certainly lose out from such an assessment. That is why this scheme is a midway house between two unpalatable alternatives, and why all three parties have backed it.
As part of that arrangement, it seems legitimate that Governments should be able to decide—I have always thought every five years, in an explicit public review—the balance between repayments by graduates and the remaining burden being borne by the generality of taxpayers, as the loans are paid off. That seems a sensible arrangement, bringing necessary flexibility into the system, and it is why it has always been made clear to students that Governments have the right to change the repayment terms as they wish. That seems a sensible feature—and if we go down the route of treating it like a private contract and repayment, it will have consequences which all of us in this House, particularly the party opposite, will come to regret.