Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 General Committees

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Percy, not least because of your track record of keeping your promises on tuition fees. It makes a nice change to be on the inside, debating the issues, rather than outside, protesting as president of the National Union of Students. Because of my experience as both president of NUS and chief executive of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, which is a national charity that supports disadvantaged further education college students to access higher education, primarily through the award of non-repayable grants, the regulations are of particular interest to me.

Members on both sides of the Committee should be in no doubt about the substance of what we are debating. This is not a usual statutory instrument that involves some tinkering with thresholds or levels, or amends an existing policy framework in the way that statutory instruments normally do. This is a major change in Government policy, and this Committee has no business discussing it. This should be debated on the Floor of the House of Commons, because the result of the regulations that the Government are railroading through Parliament today is that students from the poorest backgrounds will graduate with the highest levels of debt. How can that possibly be fair?

We must consider this change in the context of broader changes to Government higher education policy and student support, which see students graduating with levels of debt unprecedented in the history of higher education in Britain—indeed, the highest levels of student debt in the world. It is now clear that it will not be the highest earners who end up contributing most to the cost of their higher education. It will be people on middle incomes and on lower incomes who, over the course of their career, will contribute most, which makes this policy even more unfair.

We should not forget—I certainly have not forgotten—that the very existence of student grants is a direct result of concessions hard fought for and hard won by both student campaigners and Members of this House who, under successive Governments over a number of years, have made a powerful case that if we are asking students to contribute more towards the cost of their higher education, it is only fair that those from the poorest backgrounds receive a higher level of non-repayable financial support through grants, to enable them to access higher education. What we see this morning is the unravelling of that settlement and the breaking of promises made a mere five years ago by the coalition Government.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South stated, when the coalition Government trebled tuition fees in 2012, they said:

“The increase in maintenance grant for students from household with the lowest incomes, the National Scholarship Programme, and additional fair access requirements on institutions wanting to charge over £6,000 in graduate contributions should ensure that the reforms do not affect individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds disproportionately.”

Since then, we have lost the national scholarship programme. Student grants are about to go. How long is it before this Government hit the reverse gear in its entirety on all of the progress that has been made to ensure that higher education is accessible to the many and not the privileged few, as has been the case in the past?

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

This change, as my hon. Friend says, comes just five years after the coalition Government trebled tuition fees to £9,000. Will he join me in recognising the different choices made by the Welsh Labour Government, including providing tuition fee grants, so that Welsh students pay around one third of what their English peers pay?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. It just goes to show the difference that a Labour Government can make and what happens when we lose elections. In the short time she has been in this House as the hon. Member for Cardiff Central, she has already shown herself to be a doughty campaigner for the many students she represents in her constituency.

We should all be concerned about the way in which the Government have conducted themselves in relation to this process. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South highlighted from the Government’s own equality impact assessment the disproportionate impact that the change may have on mature students, women, people from working-class backgrounds, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and, in particular, Muslim students.

What a disgrace it is that the National Union of Students had to threaten the Government with legal action in order to ensure that they conducted a full and comprehensive equality impact assessment. It should be a concern for all Members that, although the NUS has seen the interim assessment that the Government used in order to embark on this policy process, the Government refused to publish the assessment that they looked at when going ahead with the policy.

Only 18 Members can vote in the Committee this morning, yet this issue will affect students in every constituency across the country. There will inevitably be a knock-on impact on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland through Barnett consequentials, and of course there are students from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who still choose to study at English universities. It is therefore even more surprising that we find ourselves here on a Committee that most of our constituents have never heard of, away from the eyes of the public—this debate should be taking place on the Floor of the House. This Government should remember that they have a majority of just 12, elected on a minority share of the vote. Even when we had Labour Governments with landslide majorities after 1997 and 2001, those Labour Governments were always prepared to put their policies before the whole House so that Members could properly debate their consequences and fight for amendments, changes and adjustments, many of which were secured and won.

I appeal to Conservative members of the Committee to think very carefully about how seriously they take their role as scrutineers of the Government and as effective legislators, because it is not the job of Members of Parliament to come to this place and simply allow the Government of the day, whatever our respective political colours, to railroad such dramatic changes in policy. It is our job to scrutinise, to hold the Government to account and to ensure that we remember that, whatever our political affiliations, we are sent to this place by our constituents to champion their interests.

How can any Member look themselves in the mirror this evening and say that this issue has been properly considered? We have already heard from the shadow Minister about the potential detrimental impact that this measure could have on people from under-represented backgrounds in higher education. How can it possibly be justified that in a mere 90-minute debate we allow something such as this to go through without sending a message to all our constituents that such a significant decision was not taken without the fullest of parliamentary scrutiny? That is what the Leader of the House promised when he gave an assurance to the shadow Leader of the House that if a prayer was tabled in the usual way by the Leader of the Opposition in an early-day motion, it would be very unusual not to debate it on the Floor of the House.

So why are we not on the Floor of the House? It is because this Government, in the short time they have been in office since May, have already established a clear track record of ducking scrutiny, avoiding debate and seeming to believe that, on a slender majority and a minority share of the vote, they have the will and the ability to do anything they please. Well, I think that students, their parents and their grandparents across the country will be appalled at what is taking place today. Despite the activities of the clever Chancellor, the clever Whips and their clever colleagues, people are very much aware of what is taking place today. I am sure that people will be aware of who made these decisions today, and it is appalling that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and their Conservative friends on this Committee could allow something so significant to slip through without the scrutiny it deserves.

On that basis, I urge all Members to say that this issue has not been properly considered and debated, because quite simply it has not. The impact of these changes could be detrimental to the people we were sent here to represent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

I agree. I am sure that universities are thinking, “Help us, but not in this way.” This Government’s decision does not help them at all.

The Minister will no doubt say that students will have a little more money in their pockets as a result of the change. As with all good cons, that is partly true, but it is a little like loan sharks or payday loans. They will get a bit up front, but they will be paying an awful lot more in the end. We again see a situation in which those who can least afford to pay are being asked to pay more than their wealthier counterparts.

Cynics might say that this is a PR stunt because, as grants count towards current borrowing, the Government can remove the figure from their books by turning grants into loans so that it looks like they are borrowing less. One might call it creative accounting. The Institute for Fiscal Studies states that

“the national accounts...will fall by...£2 billion per year”,

as the shadow Minister stated, but it adds that, in

“the long run, savings will be much less”.

This is another betrayal of parents and young people in Britain.

In 2012, the coalition Government raised tuition fees, resulting in fewer people in my constituency going on to further education. One thing that helped to soften the blow, however, was the acknowledgment of the centrality of maintenance grants, which ensured that the most disadvantaged could still access higher education. Today’s proposals were not in the Conservatives’ manifesto. Why are they doing this? Why are they doing it in such a secretive, underhand, clandestine way? I just do not understand.

The National Union of Students did a great thing in fighting to force the Government to do a full equality impact assessment. That revealed a concerning risk to the participation of students from poorer backgrounds—women students, black and minority ethnic students, mature students, disabled students and Muslim students. It seems that the only group that is not really affected are white, wealthy men.

[Wes Streeting]

Of course, the other group that is not affected by these changes is right hon. and hon. Members who enjoyed their university education for free and who received a grant. Is it not time, when debating student finance issues, to recognise that what is good for the goose is good for the gander?

[Dawn Butler]

Of course. I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention.

I want to end with a question to the Minister. What does he think about the equality impact assessment? [Interruption.] He is busy chatting at the moment, so I will repeat my question: what does the Minister think about the equality impact assessment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Joseph Johnson]

I am going to press on, if the hon. Lady does not mind. As we enable more people to benefit from higher education, we must also ensure that the system remains financially sustainable. The higher education landscape has changed drastically since Robbins set out his principle. The overall higher education participation rate 50 years ago was around 5%, while it is now close to 50%. Despite the expansion in numbers, the evidence shows that graduates have continued to benefit as the demand for higher education and skills has grown in a more developed economy.

While respecting Robbins’ principle, the Government cannot fund higher education as if the changes of the past 50 years had not happened. Given the advantages accrued by those who go to university, it is not right to ask those who do not benefit directly to meet all the costs of those who do benefit from higher education.

[Wes Streeting]

I am on page 35 of the Conservative party’s 2015 manifesto. Amid all the information about repayment thresholds and the cap on numbers, there is no reference whatever to student grants.