Higher Education: Disabled Students

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. As I have said, BIS officials are working hard with universities and organisations to make sure that disabled students receive the level of support they need. We are certainly going to be encouraging providers to publish data on their provision for disabled students. We have seen an increase in the number of disabled students accessing higher education, a trend that we are very proud of and want to see continue. We are determined to work with higher education institutions to make sure that disabled students continue to get the level of support they need.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I do not know what the Government have got against students. They take away their maintenance grant and now they are going to cut some £65 million which has been providing non-medical help for disabled students. What assurances can the Minister give that the smaller institutions, or indeed those like the Open University which have done the most to attract and service disabled students, will be able to continue providing help without that funding? Further, what assurances can she give that students of whichever organisation they go to will get the help they need at a consistent level?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have already mentioned, our higher education institutions have a responsibility under the Equality Act 2010, and we are working closely with them to ensure that disabled students continue to get the high-quality support they need. We have seen the institutional income of universities go up from £23 billion to nearly £24.5 billion, and it is forecast to go to £31 billion by 2017-18. We believe that it is right that the responsibility for supporting disabled students, whom both we and universities want to encourage to attend, is spread between universities and the Government.