Further and Higher Education Students: Cost of Living

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Sir George. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing the debate. He is an expert on higher education in this House and is widely respected. This is my first debate with the new shadow Minister, and she, too, is widely respected across the House. I know that we will have fierce debates, but I wish her well. I thank everybody who has spoken in the debate. I completely accept the pressures that students in further and higher education are facing, just as I accept that most people across the country are facing enormous cost of living challenges. I see that in my own constituency of Harlow. I am committed to social justice and I am keen that we do everything we can to support disadvantaged groups to progress up the ladder.

We need to set the context: £400 billion was spent on covid, alongside the war in Ukraine and our significant debt. However, even with that very difficult economic context, we are still doing everything we can to help disadvantaged students. Because of the number of Members who spoke and the short time left, I will write to individuals if I do not answer their points in the debate.

I will start with FE and apprenticeships. Students in vulnerable groups—young people in care, care leavers and those on disability-related benefits—may be entitled to yearly bursaries of up to £1,200. We have allocated £160 million to FE for discretionary bursaries. That is almost a 12% increase. That helps students with travel costs and the cost of books and equipment. That is an issue that has been raised by the APPG.

On apprenticeships, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central talked about the apprentice minimum wage. That increased by 9.7% to £5.28 an hour. I appreciate that that is not a huge amount of money, but the latest data shows that the median gross hourly pay for apprentices in 2021 was £9.98 an hour. A 2021 survey showed that pay increased with level of apprenticeship, from £8.23 an hour among level 2 apprentices to £13.84 among degree apprenticeships and £15.11 an hour among level 6 non- degree apprentices. We are investing £40 million to support degree apprenticeships to encourage more people to take them up. We have had more than 180,000 since we introduced degree apprenticeships in 2014. Those students have no debt; they earn while they learn. I gave the hon. Member for Sheffield Central the figures for what they are likely to earn. We know that they are going to get good, skilled jobs.

We have increased something I was very keen on: the bursary for care leavers. That was something I asked for and pushed for the moment I got this post. The bursary for care leavers who undertake an apprenticeship will increase from £1,000 to £3,000, so I am trying to do everything I can in these difficult economic times to help the most disadvantaged.

Let us move on to higher education. A lot has been said about the problems that students face. We have frozen the maximum level of tuition fees, against significant pressure. We have done everything we can on that. We are trying to minimise the debt burdens for graduates wherever we can. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central mentioned transport. He will know that, for students in South Yorkshire, there is a zoom 16-18 pass. It is 80p a journey on bus and tram.

I want to make a wider point to all hon. Members who spoke. They talk about disadvantaged students being denied the chance to go to university. A lot of that came up today, including from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne). Actually, the figures show that disadvantaged students are going to university in record numbers. Not only that, but they are about 73% more likely to go to university than they were in 2010. That is something that I am very proud of. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) asked what I am proud of: I am very proud that we are helping more disadvantaged students to attend university, and that we created 5 million apprentices, increased the number of degree apprenticeships and introduced the apprenticeship bursary.

We previously helped students living in private accommodation with energy bills. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) mentioned mental health. We have given £15 million to the OfS to help universities with mental health provision. We are doing a lot of work on that, and I refer him to previous debates in the House on this subject.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I will carry on a little bit. I have very little time because the hon. Member for Sheffield Central needs a couple of minutes to sum up, but I will try to bring in the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake).

There is more support for students who have disabilities, who get maintenance grants on top of that, of course. None of that was mentioned. We give £276 million—an increase of £16 million over the past year—to the OfS to help disadvantaged students across our HE system.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I want to carry on because of the time.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will he give way before the end?

[Robert Halfon]

If I can, I will. I genuinely would love more time to bring people in.

That is a lot of money. I have examples: the university in the hon. Member’s own constituency has a £500 cash bursary, and in Liverpool, vulnerable students get bursaries of close to, I think, £2,000. We are trying to target significant help at disadvantaged students with that £276 million. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central will know that postgraduate master’s students can apply for loans of £12,000 per annum, and doctoral students can apply for loans of £28,000.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) talked about core funding. He will know that skills funding is increasing by £3.8 billion over the Parliament, with £1.6 billion extra for 16 to 19-year-olds. We have just increased core funding by £185 million this year and £285 million the next year, on top of £125 million, as he knows. Wherever possible, we are trying to put more money into further education. My hon. Friend’s college has had a significant amount of capital funding and core funding, so I think he will be pleased with that. I hope that also answers some of the questions that the distinguished Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), asked.

If the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) would like to come in very quickly, I will take his intervention—I think I have two minutes.

[Ben Lake]

On rental accommodation, I am sure the Minister will agree that too often students find themselves having to go for substandard accommodation due to price constraints. Will he consider that in delivering future support?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

Of course, accommodation is up to the universities and private tenants—although we also work closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—but I will look at that important point, because we want students to live in quality accommodation.

[Caroline Lucas]

On the £276 million figure for the hardship fund, calculations from the House of Commons Library suggest that, while the cash value per student has increased in the last two years, in real terms it has actually fallen each year, with the 2023-24 level expected to be around 21% less in real terms than 2019-20. Will he look again at the amount of resource going into those budgets? Against inflation, it really is not enough.

[Robert Halfon]

If I can answer with a final, quick point about the £276 million, there were lots of universities —I can give figures from up and down the country—with bursaries of between £500 and £2,000 going to the most vulnerable students. We are trying to target help.

To conclude, there is one thing that has not been mentioned at all. Everyone here has looked at this in isolation from all the other help the Government are giving to hard-pressed families up and down the country. It is important to remember that the Government are spending around £94 billion—£3,300 per household on average—helping families, which includes students in FE and elsewhere, along with apprentices, to try and help them in every way we can. As in Sheffield and throughout the country, many of our universities and colleges are doing a great job in difficult circumstances, and the Government are targeting help at those who need it most while being fair to both students and the taxpayer.