Student Maintenance Grants
Debate between James Morris and Gordon Marsden(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.