Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)]

I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for bringing this Motion of Regret before the House—and I join others in supporting it. I do so because it is very clear from the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others that this move will impact more heavily on students from poorer families who, up till now, have received substantial maintenance grants to help offset the considerable debts that they incur from the cumulative effect of tuition fees over three years. As my noble friend Lady Garden said, that amounts to something like £43,000 at the moment. The result of this would be to raise that debt by some £17,000, up towards £60,000.

The numbers involved in this are not trivial. In 2014-15, 42% of students in this country got a full grant, while 14% got partial grants. More than 50% of students currently benefit from the maintenance grant in one form or another; that is approximately 500,000 students—very considerable numbers. As BIS’s own impact assessment makes clear, and as others have mentioned, it will disproportionately affect those such as black and ethnic minority students and women.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Could she clarify a point that is puzzling us on these Benches? It has been stated that students undertaking part-time studies can get their grant in full; that is the impression that has been given. Is that correct? I know that she has spent a lot of time discussing part-time students and their remuneration.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

The answer, I believe, is that until now part-time students have had no maintenance grants. One of the beneficial effects of this—I was going to mention it later—is that it has enabled the Government to extend maintenance grants to part-time students. That is one group of people who will be better off. But it is noticeable that among the students who will be affected are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, mature students—those who come to university late. They have shown already, by the way they have reacted to the introduction of high tuition fees, that they are much more risk-averse than younger students.

Perhaps I should declare an interest as a member of the all-party Higher Education Commission, which a couple of years ago published a study of the financing of higher education. The evidence that we took included a short survey of quite a number of students and their reactions to this. An interesting fact that emerged from the survey was that the 18 year-olds knew very little about the financial effects of the debts they were taking on. As far as they were concerned, it was all a long way in the future. They felt, as I remember I felt when I was 21 and people were talking to me about pensions, something along the lines of, “I couldn’t care less”. Later on one realises how important these things are.

It became clear that older students, on the other hand, are worried about taking on further debt. Many of them already have mortgages and children, and are trying to manage their costs. They are much more worried about taking on debt than younger people are. That was one reason why, among mature students, who are disproportionately also part-time students, there has been an enormous drop in numbers. There has been a 45% drop in the number of part-time students since the introduction of tuition fees.

I feel strongly about all these issues. I accept that under the present repayment terms the actual amount repaid will remain at 9% on all income over £21,000 each year. The only difference is that those from lower-income households will have bigger debts, which for many of them will remain for 30 years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckoned that under the old system, before the introduction of these new measures, 73% of student loans would never be fully repaid. The measures before us will mean that more students from lower-paid households—these are the students who tend to go into lower-paid jobs—will have bigger debts, and that proportion can only increase.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, pointed out, there is a certain amount of creative accounting which enables the Government to take some £2 billion off the books today, with the idea that it will be picked up 30 years hence, in never-never land. There are only two good things about this. First, it has enabled the Government not to cut the adult education budget in money terms. I was very pleased about that. Secondly, it has enabled them to put some funding into maintenance grants for part-time students.

But I am particularly sorry to see this measure involving maintenance loans, because the previous system, along with the national student scholarship scheme and all the fair access measures taken in 2012, was part of the compact between the coalition partners on the introduction of full-cost tuition fees. My former leader in the other place, the right honourable Nick Clegg, went to considerable trouble to ensure that the introduction of fees would not impact more toughly on students from lower-income backgrounds. This measure seems to me to be yet another cynical unwinding of the coalition agreements. What were very carefully balanced measures to promote equity are now being cast aside with remarkably little thought.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, may I make a point, not as an expert on the figures—we have heard from them in various parts of the House—but to suggest that the Government might be walking into a false economy here? I say this as someone who, as a broadcaster, has talked to artists, musicians, novelists and other people who have made the creative economy glow—a glow in which the Government frequently feel able to bask. Many of those people who came from very impoverished backgrounds feel that they owe their success, their chance in life, to the support they got at a moment when they needed a maintenance grant.

I will not bore your Lordships with lots of names, but I could reel off pop stars, painters, novelists—you name it—who, had it not been for this support, might not have been able to make the contribution to our creative economy that they have. We should tread very carefully in cutting off funds to that section of our community.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a paid employee of Imperial College London, which is a Russell Group university, and as chairman of the Royal College of Music and chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University in Yorkshire. I am sure that the noble Baroness understands that these are very different higher educational institutions and that they will all be seriously worried about this measure. One issue is that this seems to have been slipped under the wire without proper discussion in the House of Commons and has now come to be debated only as a result of my noble friend’s excellent Motion of regret. A key issue here is the debate on higher education altogether. I fervently hope that the Minister will do something to ensure that there is a proper debate about the Green Paper that is currently being processed, because a number of measures in there are very serious.

I will not detain the House for long, because I have not prepared a speech, and I do not intend to prepare speeches. But I must tell the Minister that I remember vividly a graduation ceremony at Sheffield Hallam University when a 55 year-old, rather ageing-looking man came up to me with tears running down his cheeks and told me, “This university has completely changed my life”. This is not just an isolated example; it happens every day in Sheffield.