Student Maintenance Grants

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend refers to the abolition of the EMA—

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Marsden]

No, I am sorry, I will not give way. I have already said that.

The EMA is not the subject of our debate today, but that point illustrates the problems affecting further education colleges. There can be a cumulative effect for the future of such colleges because these measures can result in people no longer applying to them. That is why the Association of Colleges said in a specific response to these regulations:

“We have real concerns about the proposed change as many of the students may never earn enough to pay back the money and the policy does appear to penalise poorer students.”

[Mr Marsden]

I have already indicated that I will not give way at the moment, but I will do so in a little while.

The expansion of higher education opportunities in further education colleges after 1997 was one of the most significant advances made under the Labour Government in this area, and it was a crucial part of beginning to address the lack of balance for higher education in the English regions outside the areas of the traditional clusters of long-established universities. It was part of a joined-up strategy to embed higher education and skills in our local economies and via the regional development agencies at that time. My local Blackpool and The Fylde College gained an excellent new higher education block in that period, where more than 2,800 students are now in higher education. We know that many further education students come from precisely the non-traditional backgrounds for participation in higher education.

[James Morris]

The hon. Gentleman is deploying the same argument that was deployed against the introduction of tuition fees, which was carried out by the previous Labour Government and developed by the coalition, but we have actually seen an increase in the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university. His argument, therefore, just does not stack up.

[Mr Marsden]

Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman listens as I talk further about the way in which these things have changed, he will understand that what was introduced in 2012 and the explanations—I will not call them apologies—that his Government gave for tripling tuition fees were based on a series of quid pro quos, all of which they have now abandoned. The pattern I have talked about is also seen in the number of people doing higher education in the so-called “post-92” universities and receiving the maintenance grant. That is why million+, whose membership contains a significant number of those post-92 universities, has expressed its alarm in the briefing it prepared for today’s debate. It said that

“by virtue of nothing more than household income, some students will be saddled with debts far in excess of their fellow students.”

It continued:

“the freezing of the earning repayment threshold for five years will also exacerbate this problem and will hit lower earning graduates the hardest.”

My former colleague Bill Rammell, who was a higher education Minister and is now vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, made precisely those points in an excellent piece for Politics Home today.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

I recently visited Ormiston Forge Academy, which is an improving school in my constituency, and took part in an aspiration day. What struck me when I talked to the year 8 pupils was that the barriers to their thinking about going on to higher education were only partly to do with money. Primarily, they were to do with their background, whether their parents had been to university and whether their friends aspired to go to university. That was an important part of the conversation that I had with them.

The arguments that we hear from the Opposition about loans are like a recycled debate from a few years ago. Young people and students are becoming much more attuned to and understand the progressive nature of the loans system that we have introduced. Low-income graduates will not have to pay back the loans until they get over a certain income threshold.

As the Minister rightly pointed out, putting our higher education system on a sustainable footing was a choice that the Government made. They chose to design a progressive loans system to enable students of whatever background to aspire to go to university. As hon. Members have pointed out, the system that has been designed by the Government introduces maintenance loans for part-time students for the first time, which will have a considerable positive impact on social mobility. It also introduces maintenance loans for MAs and other post-graduate courses, which will provide different ways of accessing higher education.

Hearing the arguments from the Opposition feels a bit like groundhog day. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, no alternatives have been posited.

[Simon Hoare]

I think that the answer to this will be yes, but I wonder whether my hon. Friend shares my irritation with this debate because all of us in this House should be committed to improving social inclusion. He is stating very clearly the narrative that we deploy to explain these policies. The narrative from the Opposition, in my judgment, is tailored specifically to preclude people from applying to go on to further education. Is it not time that we all explained to students precisely what my hon. Friend is saying?

[James Morris]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. When I spoke to the students, it struck me that we needed to educate them about the realities of going into higher education, whether by providing better information about courses that they might be able to take or explaining what it means to take out a student loan. As he says, there is a lot of propaganda about being saddled with debt. There needs to be more education about what it means in practice.

[Rebecca Harris]

Does my hon. Friend agree that young people these days are getting much more savvy about the types of courses they want to take, whether courses will lead to a productive career and whether universities have good engagement, employability guidance and that kind of thing?

[James Morris]

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. Among the core benefits of the reforms that were introduced in the last Parliament and that are being developed now is that they encourage universities to raise the quality of higher education courses, make students much more discriminating about what they want to get out of higher education, and provide a greater understanding, as the Minister pointed out, of what economists rather dryly call the returns of higher education, which are tangible. We are seeing huge new opportunities in the graduate employment market. More graduates are getting high-quality jobs and more people are taking the opportunities that are out there.

The system that has been devised is progressive. The evidence is that the loans system has not had the detrimental impact on access that Opposition Members warned about three or four years ago. This is another one of those groundhog day, recycled scare stories. It simply is not happening. More people from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university.

It would be very much a backwards step to accept the Opposition motion because it provides no credible alternative to the Government’s plan and runs away from the difficult choices that the Government have made to put our higher education system on a sustainable footing. I urge the House to reject it.