Question to the Department for Education:

To the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the potential effect on graduate teaching assistants of reductions in university funding as a result of the covid-19 outbreak in the academic year 2020-21.

This continues to be an incredibly difficult time, and our entire higher education (HE) sector has a key role to play during these unprecedented times. I wrote to HE providers on 26 March 2020, asking that they pay particular attention to the additional financial hardships that are being faced by hourly paid and student staff who have been reliant on income from campus-based jobs at this time.

In the letter, I was clear that I expected that in most circumstances universities would continue paying staff as usual but, where this is not the case, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) had been developed as part of a package of support from Her Majesty's Treasury to help pay staff wages and keep people in employment.

However, HE providers are independent, autonomous bodies and are responsible for decisions about who they employ and the terms and conditions of employment they offer. HE providers should make decisions according to their own operational needs and the needs of their wider staff and student community. This includes decisions about whether to access the range of government support on offer, including the CJRS. We expect universities to comply with their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and the way their employment practices affect different sections of their communities and staff at different stages of their careers.