Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Berridge on 7 June (HL Deb, col 1185) that "the Office for Students has just consulted on the request to reprioritise the strategic priorities grant", what are these renewed strategic priorities; and to what level of education it is intended that these strategic priorities will apply.

The Strategic Priorities Grant plays an important role in supporting higher education providers and students to develop the skills and knowledge needed locally, regionally, and nationally to support the economy.

The grant is supplied by the government on an annual basis to support higher education providers’ ongoing teaching and related activities where income from tuition fees alone do not meet the cost of provision.

The government has asked the Office for Students to reform the Strategic Priorities Grant for 2021–22. These reforms apply to higher education funding and include the reallocation of high-cost subject funding towards the provision of high-cost subjects which support the NHS and wider healthcare policy, high-cost science, technology, and engineering subjects, and subjects meeting specific labour market needs, as well as the removal of the London weighting element of the grant.

We have also asked the Office for Students to invest an additional £10 million in our world-leading specialist providers, many of which specialise in arts provision. We want to ensure that our specialist providers receive additional support, and that grant funding is used to support students effectively.

The Office for Students has now publicly consulted on these proposals, and responses from universities, students, and others will be considered before any final decisions on allocations are made.