Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the letter of 26 January 2023 sent by the Office for Students to accountable officers at registered higher education providers, which states that £10 million which had been set aside for preparation for the Lifelong Loan Entitlement is no longer needed for the purpose originally identified, what progress has been made on implementing the Lifelong Loan Entitlement.

The Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) will be introduced from 2025. The government has already introduced key legislation as part of the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022.Building on these measures, on 1 February 2023 the government introduced the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill as a further step towards delivery of the LLE from 2025.

As part of the pathway towards the LLE, we will stimulate the provision of high-quality higher technical education (Levels 4 and 5) and have introduced pilots to inform future flexible and modular provision. As of the start of the 2022/23 academic year, we are trialling loan-funded access to tuition fees for over 100 short courses at Levels 4 to 6 at 22 providers across England. This will help us build and test towards the LLE, and will allow students to study and build up the skills they need more flexibly.

On 6 May 2022, the department concluded its consultation on the LLE, as part of the planned pathway to delivery from 2025. This consultation and other ongoing sector engagement is a critical part of delivering a transformation of student finance. We are carefully considering the contributions and will publish our response in due course.