Disabled Students’ Allowance.

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, debates in this House are always at their best when we hear the voices of experience, and we have just heard that from the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

I am going to make only one political point and it is this. Some of us are very concerned that this change was scheduled to happen last year—these things happened in sequence—but there was a big National Union of Students demonstration at a time when student-dominated seats were expected to be very important in the general election and the change was postponed to next year.

I hope that the fact that there is not an imminent general election now will not affect in any way the Government’s verdict on the consultation.

I do not think it can be denied that if the disabled students’ allowance goes, there will be a disincentive to universities and higher education institutions to take disabled students. I should declare an interest as chair of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. We are particularly affected because, although about 11% of students at all HEIs have a reported disability, 21% of our students are affected by a disability and 16% claim DSA. Most of them suffer, like the noble Lord, Lord Addington, from dyslexia.

People might think, “Oh well, that’s all right. It’s only musicians. It’s only arty-farty types. It’s not going to affect the country if they can’t have an education, or the talent pool is limited”. At Trinity Laban, 99% of our graduates are in work or further education six months after graduating. That is in the top three in the country, ahead of Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics and all the Russell group of universities. These are people who make a huge contribution to our national wealth as well as our national culture.

Let me move from that general picture to the specific. I think of Lewis Raines, an outstanding young man who is president of the student union. He is the most capable member of my governing board. He contributes enormously. How he gets through all the papers for the board, I am not quite sure, but he does. He had an early diagnosis of a severe learning disability—namely, dyslexia. This is how he describes his experience:

“I was first granted DSA whilst studying a BA (Hons) in Musical theatre at the Blackpool and the Fylde college. I had previously whilst at Rossall school been given a reader and scribe for my exams and now with DSA support I was given the opportunity to pursue my goal of getting a degree and becoming an opera singer. The fantastic equipment I was given let me record my lectures, I could speak vocally into my computer to write my essays and was given additional one to one assistance with a tutor for two hours every week to work on my English language. I graduated with 2.1. This gave me first of all the confidence to believe I could study at a top conservatoire of music. When I came to London to study at Trinity Laban I still could not read music or for that matter read another language. However I was just so grateful for DSA, the work and support they gave me helped me get a 2.1 because I had additional hours of coaching. I can’t sight read music but I am so glad to have been able to have one to one coaching from my teachers Alison Wells and Helen Yorke funded by DSA.

Without the DSA I don’t think I would have a degree today and I don’t think I would have ever been here as the president of Trinity Laban. The work and support I was given I will forever be grateful for”.

I am sorry that Lewis cannot be here because, if noble Lords met him, they would realise what a loss it would have been if he had not had the education that has set him on course. He will be a huge contributor perhaps in music, perhaps more widely to our society. His is just one of many cases. One of our students has just won a major jazz award thanks to DSA. David Toole was a leading dancer at the Paralympics thanks to DSA. We have the Candoco Dance Company of disabled people, and they are able to work only thanks to DSA. I think I am seeing the personal benefits that these students derive from the current DSA system, and I am extremely concerned that we should be moving away from it.

Trinity Laban already spends £100,000 of our own money in helping disabled students, in line with our legal responsibilities. That is quite a large sum for an institution with a turnover of only £23 million. If the Government go through with some of the changes that are being canvassed, we reckon that that figure could roughly double—we would lose anything from £50,000 to £150,000. That would be extremely significant to a small arts institution such as ours. We do not have hidden pots. There is not a purse stuffed up the principal’s sleeve. We have a very limited income, and it would be extremely difficult to cope with a loss of DSA. The obvious way of coping would be to find ways of cutting down on our numbers of disabled students.

I am afraid that the Government have rather a habit of arguing like this: “We must cut the deficit. But we will be unpopular if we do the things that cut the deficit so someone else must cut the deficit”. We see this with local authorities every day of the week. The cuts in government spending are much less than the cuts the Government are forcing on local authorities, and I am nervous that this is another such case.

I am sure that the DSA scheme can be improved. I am not against reviewing it. I am worried by some of the wording used for that review. When I hear “rebalance”, I know precisely what the Government mean—less cost for the Government, more cost for institutions. I could go through their consultation paper finding case after case of that sort of language.

At the end of the day we are left with this dilemma—what are we to do? Do we help people like Lewis or balance our budget? It is not possible to find a magic wand that enables us to do both. I give credit to the Government; they backed off once. I hope that they will back off again. I am delighted that the consultation documents says in paragraph 11:

“If any changes result from this consultation”.

It does not say that changes “will” result from the consultation. I do not think that the Government would find it good business in any sense to mount an attack on disabled people, who do not come into any of the categories of people getting welfare benefits whom the Government do not so easily support. I hope that the essentials of the existing DSA system, tweaked and tuned as it might be, remain in place after this review and that people like Lewis will therefore go on being able to receive an education that equips them to contribute to our society.