Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2015
Debate between Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Winston
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, may I make a point, not as an expert on the figures—we have heard from them in various parts of the House—but to suggest that the Government might be walking into a false economy here? I say this as someone who, as a broadcaster, has talked to artists, musicians, novelists and other people who have made the creative economy glow—a glow in which the Government frequently feel able to bask. Many of those people who came from very impoverished backgrounds feel that they owe their success, their chance in life, to the support they got at a moment when they needed a maintenance grant.
I will not bore your Lordships with lots of names, but I could reel off pop stars, painters, novelists—you name it—who, had it not been for this support, might not have been able to make the contribution to our creative economy that they have. We should tread very carefully in cutting off funds to that section of our community.
Lord Winston
My Lords, I declare an interest as a paid employee of Imperial College London, which is a Russell Group university, and as chairman of the Royal College of Music and chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University in Yorkshire. I am sure that the noble Baroness understands that these are very different higher educational institutions and that they will all be seriously worried about this measure. One issue is that this seems to have been slipped under the wire without proper discussion in the House of Commons and has now come to be debated only as a result of my noble friend’s excellent Motion of regret. A key issue here is the debate on higher education altogether. I fervently hope that the Minister will do something to ensure that there is a proper debate about the Green Paper that is currently being processed, because a number of measures in there are very serious.
I will not detain the House for long, because I have not prepared a speech, and I do not intend to prepare speeches. But I must tell the Minister that I remember vividly a graduation ceremony at Sheffield Hallam University when a 55 year-old, rather ageing-looking man came up to me with tears running down his cheeks and told me, “This university has completely changed my life”. This is not just an isolated example; it happens every day in Sheffield.