Question: The A Level pass rate has inched nearer to 100 per cent this year - are you concerned that the exams are getting easier?

Barry Sheerman: No, I'm not. I believe that these exams are the relevant exams for this age and not a past age.

I mean, some of the Neanderthals that have been wheeled out consistently try and live in the past where we were training people for a very different society and a very different set of skills.

We did a very thorough inquiry into A Levels this past year, after last year's summer results. We were very impressed by the quality of the A Level syllabus, the A Level standards, and we felt they were the kinds of qualifications that should be allowed to certainly remain in at least the medium term because what people like is stability, and the changeover, the transition, is always the difficult thing when you're changing an exam system.

We thought the A Level examination system was good, it had broadened, it listened to both students and teachers and employers with a move to a broader focus on the first year of A Level - the AS - which gave a much better opportunity for people to try other subjects, four or five subjects as you know, and then into their final year with the ability to take exams in all AS and A2 at one time at the end of the second year.

Question: How damaged is the qualification following last year's row?

Barry Sheerman: Not at all. I think that the only thing that happened was one exam board made some misinterpretations of one small set of results.

Two major exam boards had no problems, we found that one had some problems and they were all grossly exaggerated by the media and there was very much what we thought was a storm in a teacup.

Question: How do you respond to the suggestion from [head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority] Ken Boston that some students could skip GCSEs? Would you support such a move?

Barry Sheerman: Well, if you believe that Ken Boston said that! I was with Ken Boston [on Wednesday] and we were discussing this and he said clearly he didn't say that.

He said that we are the most examined country in the world, and I share that view; that we have too many exams and too many national exams are set by external authorities.

I think there will be and could be a swing back to more internal assessment, and long-term we need a qualification in our country that is right for the student.

The GCSE, I think in many ways there's nothing wrong with that qualification, and it's alright if you're the headmaster of Eton or Dulwich, who I think put their name to this original suggestion about the irrelevance of GCSEs.

But for a lot of kids that are leaving school at 16 or even 18, that GCSE is very important They worked very hard for it, they achieve it and it's what they show an employer when they want to go on to a new apprenticeship scheme or whatever.

But the problem with the system at the moment is that the GCSE does sort of encourage a kind of view that at 16 you get your qualification and you can leave. I think in our society we've quickly got to move to a norm of people staying on at school, at least until 18, and then what one has as a qualification at 18 should be the important one.

But we don't, we have a national school-leaving age of 16 and there should be an appropriate mark of achievement at that age. So I think Ken Boston was misinterpreted.

Question: Are tuition fees a very progressive policy, in that they could be seen as a tax on the middle classes?

Barry Sheerman: I don't see tuition fees as a tax. The Dearing recommendation was always - and it was an all-party agreement, when you think only six years ago all political parties signed up to that - that there should be a balance in higher education who pays for it between society, the taxpayer, maybe income tax, the individual that benefits from that education by paying something back - and of course then they earn 50 per cent more than those who don't get a degree on average in their lifetime - and the employers.

That balance, we thought, was right, and my recent committee's report emphasises that. But it also emphasises something else very strongly that Great Britain is still known for the quality of its higher education and if you want quality, you'll maintain that quality.

Keeping teaching and research under one roof and one establishment - you don't want to do down the awful degree course route that they've gone in Germany and France and other countries where they do not have high quality undergraduate education any more - if you want to maintain quality and expand the numbers, you've got to pay for it.

You can have it on the cheap, you can do what the Conservatives are suggesting and cut back higher education, so 500,00 less students go into higher education - fine.

You can go the Liberal Democrat way where you get the European version; you get higher education on the cheap.

But if you want to maintain quality, you have to get the money. And if you're going to get the money, there's no doubt it won't all come from the taxpayer, part of that has to come from the individual and one of the first ways that's been proposed is through the top-up-fee system.

Question: How important is a successful autumn conference to helping ministers win support for the policy? Will opposition from students and unions create more difficulties for [education secretary] Charles Clarke?

Barry Sheerman: Well, I think people have to spell out very clearly to our backbenchers in the Labour Party what it is. This is important to maintain quality higher education in the UK. That's very, very important.

On the other hand, you've got to make sure that people understand that if you want to be fair, and after all our party was based on - I thought - proportioning taxation and much else fairly, quite a small percentage of most of my colleagues' populations in their constituencies will benefit from this extra £25,000 you get by spending another five years in higher education and further education, because from starting school to going to aged 16 the government spends £45,000 on the average pupil.

To stay on from 16 to 21, the normal, conventional length for a higher education course, it costs another £25,000, and then you offer the student interest-free loans.

Well most of us, 80 per cent of the people in our constituencies haven't been to higher education, they're ordinary taxpayers, they only got the up-to-16 investment in their education. And when they come to go to start a new business, or a small business employing people, they don't get an interest-free loan.

So it's equity, and I think if it can be brought home that if you're going to be true to our origins and our traditions and our philosophy we apportion the burden equally and fairly, I think there's a pretty fair case to be made that you've got to weigh all those factors in.

And of course another part of that is if you spend less money subsidising middle class professional students with interest-free loans, you could use that liberated £1.2 billion to£1.8 billion to pay really good maintenance grants, subsistence, to kids from the poorest backgrounds, perhaps £5000 a year.

That would sweeten things a great deal, so I would hope to see some movement in government on that, putting some more money in to giving the poorest students in our society a good leg-up in terms of a good maintenance grant that doesn't have to be paid back.

Question: Do you think there could be a compromise on greater support for poorer students or tougher measures to widen access to universities?

Barry Sheerman: Yes, I think there is something there, that there's room for accommodation.

Here is an area where the Labour government can be said to be clearly a party sticking to the principles, the good principles, of people paying their fair share for what they receive from the state.

And there is also the principle that the whole future of our country, a vast amount of it, depends on the high level of quality of research, innovation and development that we're going to get out of the participation of universities and participating with the private sector, that's absolutely crucial to our futures.

If we're going to remain in that competition worldwide, it costs a lot of money and we can't do it on the cheap. If you really care about the future of our country and the future of our constituents, you know that money must be found.

Question: Should there be more incentives available to students to encourage them to pursue an academic career, such as cancelling debts?

Barry Sheerman: Yes, there are two things to encourage people to go into higher education, to do a PhD and to go into the university.

What you'll find in an area where we know that the number of jobs are going to outstrip two-or-three to one the number of qualified graduates, increasingly as you're competing for a scarce resource - highly skilled people - then the premium for getting that would be paying off their student debts.

And that will develop in terms of attracting people to stay in higher education, to do a PhD and then become young university researchers and teachers.

But there must also be the resources to pay decent pay, especially to the younger graduates and postgraduates, and also giving a decent living wage to those young professionals who are researching and teaching in those first five to ten years.