Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, securing a debate on these regulations and join with him in his regrets.

There has been widespread concern at actions the Government are taking which place additional burdens on those least able to accommodate them. The Liberal Democrats will feel particularly outraged at these regulations. As the junior coalition partner, we were notoriously unable to implement our policy of no tuition fees, but we were able to use our influence in government to fend off some of the harsher proposals of our coalition partners, to produce a fairer system for students from lower-income backgrounds and to give incentives and support to those who might be deterred from further learning.

I was a Government Whip in the coalition Government, working for the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, as Universities Minister, who the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has already quoted. He understood fairness and we were delighted when he said that the proposals would,

“encourage people from poorer backgrounds to go to university, because of the higher education maintenance grant”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/10; col. 940.]

The way in which these changes are being brought in—through the back door, as it were—seems to indicate that the Government are rather ashamed of them, and hoped to sneak them through without having to face the music of their impact. They are, indeed, a backward step.

Of course any additional support in the form of loans is welcome, but that really is not relevant to this argument. Maintenance grants have the great advantage of being non-repayable. The sums, of up to £3,387 a year, certainly do not allow students to live the life of Riley, but they can make all the difference to a student struggling to pay for the necessities of life and study—rent, food, other bills and the items they need for their learning. They have enabled some of the most disadvantaged to participate in higher education, many the first in their families to do so, without the burden of additional debt.

Changing grants to loans is a very significant move for those who will see their university debts soar. I, too, was startled at the Institute for Fiscal Studies warning that,

“The poorest 40% of students going to university in England will now graduate with debts of up to £53,000 from a three-year course, rather than … £40,500”,

which is already an eye-watering amount to this cohort.

Those who will be most deterred by additional debt include those the Government most need to engage in education. Women, for example, tend to be more debt averse than men as well as being a large proportion of this population. Disabled students have the additional deterrent of changes to the disabled students’ allowance, which we were debating only last week. Adult learners and black and minority ethnic learners are more aware of the burden of loans, which they are unlikely ever to be able to repay.

What benefit will this bring to government finances? It will be disproportionately little in comparison with the damage it will do to encouraging social mobility and building an inclusive graduate population. Many of these loans will never be repaid anyway, but for the students they will be there as a reminder of a debt instead of a grant that can be long forgotten.

The Government should be facing up to skills shortages in the population and tackling the increasing divisions between rich and poor. We need to encourage learners to improve their skills and knowledge, to be ambitious, to fulfil their potential and thus to make a greater contribution to the economy and to the well-being of themselves and the country.

These regulations will do nothing to encourage those from less advantaged parts of society to work hard and achieve. The Government did not need to do this. It was not a manifesto commitment. As the National Union of Students rightly said, the decision is “undemocratic and ill-considered”. There has been no effort at thorough consultation with those people and organisations most affected by the changes.

Would the Minister please clarify for the House the justification for saddling the poorest students with the greatest debt? In coalition, my party argued consistently for measures to encourage—not deter—women, adult learners, ethnic minorities and disabled people. What are this Government doing to encourage these learners? What consultation will be put in place before such a damaging change is inflicted on those learners we most wish to be helped to fulfil their potential?

I urge the Government to think again about these mean-spirited and harmful changes.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, most speakers tonight will focus on cost and the increased debt that will accrue to students if these grants are converted to loans. I want to explore an effect that, in my view, is far more serious and damaging to the Government’s aspirations for higher education. The effect of ending grants designed for food and rent costs is that more students will have to stay at home for their studies. I will explain briefly that this will eventuate in a decrease in social and academic mobility and a ghettoisation of universities.

It is already the case that teenagers from better-off families are more likely to attend top universities than those from low-income backgrounds, even though more students from less well-off backgrounds are attending university. Some 5% of poor students went to Russell Group universities according to the latest statistics, compared with 12% from more affluent homes. It is very likely that this is simply because the teenager from a comfortable home can afford to go to any university of his or her choice throughout the country, knowing that they are able to pay the rent and all the added costs of living away from home, while the less well-off student is increasingly forced to attend whatever university is close to home. Average rents for students living away from home are around £400 a month and over £500 in London. Therefore, of course the less well-off London student will live at home, even though academically and socially his or her choice might be Oxford or Cambridge.