Master’s Level History Scholarships

Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, I agree with my noble friend, and I congratulate him on the personal commitment that he has made to supporting studentships in history at his former college. I feel confident that noble Lords across the House will be rushing to their copies of Gibbon to brush up on that bit of history. He is right. As I said in my opening response, history has a fundamental place at all levels of education, because it provides us with the ability to understand the history of our nation and of the world and the context in which we are operating now, and it develops critical skills, all of which are fundamentally important in our complex and contested modern world. I look forward to working alongside my noble friend to ensure that Britain’s leading position in the study and development of history scholarship is maintained.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister share my concern that the decline in scholarships will disproportionately affect people from lower-income backgrounds? If she does, what steps will His Majesty’s Government take to make sure that people get to study based on talent and not their ability to pay?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

If the noble Lord is making the case that it is not just at undergraduate level in universities that we need to promote wider access but at postgraduate level, I strongly agree with him. We made that point in the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, and we have already begun work to support, for example, the promulgation of successful best practice in opening up access to postgraduate study. We want to do more on that issue.