Draft Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 24th June 2026 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before I call the Minister to move the motion, any hon. Member or official who wishes to take off their jacket has my permission to do so.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 18 May. This statutory instrument is the first of three pieces of secondary legislation needed to implement the lifelong learning entitlement, or LLE, which establishes a new system of tuition fee limits for higher education courses and modules that begin on or after 1 January 2027.

The LLE is a major reform to student finance, creating a single flexible funding system for levels 4 to 6 across further and higher education. It will support people to learn, upskill and retrain throughout their working lives, and will deliver one of the core commitments in our post-16 education and skills White Paper, underpinning the growth and skills missions. The concept of a lifelong learning entitlement stems from the recommendations made by Sir Philip Augar’s independent panel to the post-18 education and funding review back in 2019. Primary legislation enacted in 2022 and 2023 by the previous Government established the framework, and these regulations are the next step in delivering it—this is a true cross-party effort.

The regulations set out how tuition fee limits will apply under the LLE. A tuition fee limit is the maximum amount that a provider can charge per year if it is subject to a fee cap. Currently, that limit is £9,790 for standard full-time courses. Those fixed annual fee limits suit traditional degrees, regardless of the volume of study undertaken, but do not work for shorter courses or modules. The regulations introduce a credit-based system to change that.

Credits are a widely recognised measure of learning, with one credit typically equivalent to around 10 hours of learning. To illustrate that, the standard fee limit for a typical higher education course in the 2026-27 academic year is £9,790, and a full year of study usually comprises 120 credits. Dividing £9,790 by 120 produces a per-credit fee limit of around £82. The regulations mean that tuition fee limits can be apportioned in line with the credit size of any given course. That does not change overall fee caps—most students will not see any difference in what they pay—but applies them more fairly across full courses and shorter study, linking fees to learning volume.

Subject to Parliament’s approval of the regulations, we intend to lay two further instruments needed to establish the LLE. Those instruments, on student support and repayments, have been published in draft to give the House full visibility and to help the sector prepare. Both will be subject to the negative procedure. As they depend on the regulations before the Committee, they will be made only if these regulations are approved.

The regulations mark an important step in delivering the LLE and transforming our skills system. They put in place the new approach to applying fee limits, which is needed to support a more flexible approach to student finance that better serves young people and adult learners. That will allow people to study in ways that fit around their lives, support providers to respond to evolving skills needs, and help individuals across the country to access the education and training that they need to succeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank Committee members for their contributions to the debate. I will endeavour to answer as many questions as I can.

The first set of questions came from the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Windsor, about face-to-face teaching. The system allows for credit funding flexibility, which is down to providers, but I recognise the importance of face-to-face teaching. That is one of the reasons why, earlier this week, my noble Friend the Minister for Skills set out the intention to link the outcomes of the teaching excellence framework scores to future access to fee increases. That is why, over different Governments, we have built a system that allows competition so that students can pick and select from a range of providers and, in essence, shop around for the best option. Greater visibility of the quality is important, and that should come from the teaching excellence framework.

A number of Members asked about the various impacts of the changes. Impact assessments have been published as part of this process. I will ask for copies of them to be sent to Members in the coming days. I hope that they will answer a number of questions.

The hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire and I have had several exchanges about student finance and student funding. I have a great deal of affection for the Liberal Democrats, but it is a system that was partly designed by them in office. His Majesty’s Opposition had affection for the Liberal Democrats at a certain point in time as well, so perhaps that is something that we can share.

The changes described are cultural for the country, affecting how adult learners look to access lifelong learning and do courses that will be shorter or compressed. The regulations allow for that. I think they will take some time to bed in, so it seems reasonable to give a five-year time horizon, but of course there will be a great deal of scrutiny from Parliament and elsewhere on their implementation.

I am happy to come back to the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire on foundation degree fees and our plans for them. The question on credit fee amounts was very detailed, and I thank him for his scrutiny of the rounding convention that we are using—there may well be a future dormant asset fund to be raided by a Government in 20 or 30 years’ time as a result of it. Again, I will write to him about why we are using a different figure from the one that he mentioned.

Finally, the former Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, was heavily involved in the inception of this measure and the review that led to its recommendation. Again, I am happy to share the Department’s assessments of behavioural impacts.

The Committee will know that this SI is a critical step towards delivering the lifelong learning entitlement. It will bring further and higher education closer together and support the growth of more flexible modular study. It sets tuition fee limits for LLE-funded courses and modules, marking a transformation of our higher and further education systems that will start this January. The changes aim not to overhaul the entire system but to tackle a key weakness in the current model, which is too rigid and focused on the traditional three-year degree, limiting opportunities for adults to retrain or upskill across their working lives. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.