Student Maintenance Grants

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I, too, represent one of the constituencies containing the largest number of students in the country. In 2011 there were just over 19,000 in the three fantastic universities, Leeds University, Leeds Beckett University and Leeds Trinity University. However, I have just three minutes in which to speak, which I believe equates to 0.0095 of a second per student in what is a hugely important debate. Given the importance of these measures, the fact that the Government have proceeded with them through secondary legislation without a full and proper debate is an absolute disgrace.

Why has there been no public consultation on these major changes? They were announced last summer, but there has been no consultation with the higher education sector in the six months since. There has been no consultation with the universities or with the student unions. It is also a matter of huge concern that the Government conducted an equality impact assessment only after the National Union of Students instigated legal proceedings. If that does not suggest that the Government know they are doing something unacceptable and have something to hide, I do not know what does.

The equality impact assessment explicitly states that the changes present a risk to the participation of students from poorer backgrounds, mature students, BME students, disabled students and Muslim students. So, having being forced to accept that all those groups will be affected, has the Minister done anything to deal with it or to suggest ways of mitigating the impacts? I am afraid that the answer is no.

I do not have time to go through all the facts, some of which have been put forward today, but these changes will clearly have a detrimental and unfair impact on students from poorer backgrounds—the students we clearly want to encourage to go to university. At the same time, the Government are also freezing the repayment threshold at £21,000. The House of Commons Library states that this will have

“a proportionately larger impact on repayments by graduates with lower lifetime earnings”.

Martin Lewis has already been mentioned. He was tasked with selling the new system to the public, but he is now looking into a judicial review of the freezing of the repayment threshold. You could scarcely make this up. Whether the Government wish to accept it or not, the evidence shows that these measures will hit students on lower incomes and discourage people from going to university. The Government must today announce a proper debate with a proper vote on this matter in the House. We will settle for nothing less.