Student Maintenance Grants

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Gordon Marsden

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marsden]

I am sorry, but I must try to make some progress. I will take more interventions later.

These measures are typical of the ideology-driven but evidence-lite approach that this Government have too often employed. This is a major reversal of policy only four years after they hailed those maintenance grants for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The statistics from the House of Commons Library tell me that the measures will affect around 500,000 of England’s most disadvantaged students. This amounts to a Domesday book listing the numbers of students who will lose their grants under the new rules. Universities across England, old and new, will be affected, as well as other higher education institutions. Further education colleges will also be affected, because they make an increasingly valuable contribution—10% and rising—to higher education, and a disproportionate number of their students will be affected.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

rose—

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Marsden]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and then briefly to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).

[Andrew Gwynne]

I commend my hon. Friend for bringing this debate to the House of Commons so that we can have a vote on this important issue. He has talked about the impact on universities and colleges. Perhaps he has seen the information released by UCAS in December that shows that, even today, twice as many young people from advantaged backgrounds as from disadvantaged backgrounds go to university. How does he think removing £3,500-worth of grant a year is going to assist social mobility?

[Mr Marsden]

The reality is that it will not. I will have more to say about social mobility later.