Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to support students that find themselves in financial difficulty during the covid-19 outbreak.

As my right hon. Friends, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, have both made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID-19.

Higher education providers take their responsibilities seriously and are best placed to identify the needs of their student body as well as how to develop the services needed to support it. When making changes to the delivery of their courses, providers need to consider how they support all students, particularly the most vulnerable, to achieve successful academic and professional outcomes.

Many providers will have hardship funds to support students in times of need, including emergencies. The expectation is that where any student requires additional support during this exceptional period (for example, they have no access to the internet, no computer at home or cannot afford to purchase a computer), providers will support them through their own hardship funds.

We have worked closely with the higher education regulator in England, the Office for Students (OfS), to help clarify that providers can draw upon existing funding to provide hardship funds and support disadvantaged students impacted by COVID-19. Providers can use the funding, worth around £23 million per month for April, May, June and July, towards student hardship funds, including the purchase of IT equipment.

The OfS has provided guidance for providers on the use of existing student premium funding to support students facing hardship:
www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/coronavirus/provider-guide-to-coronavirus/provider-faq/.

Details of the technology support available for children and schools are here: www.gov.uk/guidance/get-help-with-technology-for-remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19. These measures are the result of a £100 million allocation to support remote education, including providing routers and laptops to vulnerable students, prioritising care leavers, including those at university.