Gordon Marsden MP: Axing student grants won’t bring fairness or sound finance

Yesterday as Shadow Universities Minister I and a small group of 17 MPs have been debating the government’s proposals for taking grants away from around half a million of England’s most disadvantaged students and replacing them with loans. It’s a big issue but the Government have tried to shut down discussions by shunting it off to a parliamentary committee instead of debating it properly in the Commons Chamber.

This is not a bit of incidental tinkering with existing financial regulations. It represents a major departure and reversal of policy only four years after grants for students from disadvantaged backgrounds was hailed by Government as an essential element in their strategy for fairness and acceptance of the tripling of tuition fees.

It is typical of the ideology driven, and evidence-lite approach that this government too often employs. This is a pattern happening across other areas including NHS bursaries for nurses and other NHS staff.

The Government has ducked and dived to try and avoid further debate on this direction of travel. We have seen that with the way the equality impact assessment which the Government were shamed and pressed in a rigorous NUS campaign into producing slipped out without ceremony in November. This is the document which almost dares not speak its name not least because the detailed evidence of the negative impact this change will have is tucked away in its pages ill at ease with the bland conclusions that it will be ‘alright on the night’ which it comes with. However in the committee debate today we were able to comprehensively demonstrate the Governments own equality impact assessment shows this change will affect unfairly a huge swathe of student especially those from BME, Disability, older learners, women and Muslim backgrounds.

The range of these issues is daunting. The Assessment concedes that BME students in particular are going to be disproportionately worse off. On older learners it says ‘Mature students will be disproportionately impacted by the policy proposals to remove the full maintenance grant and replace with additional loan as well as the freezing of targeted grants. Government has also conceded that disabled people will be disproportionately affected by the decision to not protect the real terms value of Disabled Students Allowances. The assessment spells out the potential for discrimination because of religious beliefs stating “there is evidence to suggest that there are groups of Muslim students whose religion prohibits them from taking out an interest bearing loan.’ Finally, women are to be affected. ‘Female students will be particularly affected by the freeze to childcare grants, parents’ learning allowances and DSAs given their significant over representation in these populations .‘

The numbers of students who currently receive grants - nearly ½ million right across England, including 1527 at my own excellent local FE College of Blackpool and the Fylde, inevitably means this change is a major issue. Yet despite being this the Government have refused to bring it to the floor of the House of Commons, preferring instead to try and sneak it through the delegated legislation route where it only has the chance to be debated and voted on by a handful of MPs.

Removing grants makes even less sense when you consider the Institute for Fiscal Studies conclusion that ‘this change won’t improve Government finances in the long-term.’ They went on to say ‘the replacement of maintenance grants will raise debt for the poorest students, but do little to improve government finances in the long run. The net effect is to reduce government borrowing by around £270 million per cohort in the long run in 2016 money – a 3% decline in the government’s estimated contribution to higher education.’  It’s therefore important to ask the why the government is embarking on this leap in the dark which will, as the IFS makes clear, diminish their contribution to HE while doing little to address the black hole?

Both this Government, and its predecessor has set great store by the principle of nudge, actions that persuade people to change their behaviour for the better. But it is possible to ‘nudge’ people away from desirable outcomes, in this case getting higher education, rather than towards them. This is particularly apparent in light of a new BIS study, which the Government itself, included in the Impact Assessment states that ‘over half (54%) of applicants say they felt put off by the cost of university.

The Government decision to axe grants was not in their manifesto, there was little or no consultation with the various representative organisations and the question arises as to why they did they not commission any research from several of the very reputable independent policy groups and think tanks.

All in all students shouldn’t be paying for Government’s financial miscalculations and no amount of the bravura bluster which the Prime Minister gave in Parliament when he dodged the question on the grants issue in PMQ’s this week, will alter that fact. If the Government cares about their social mobility they should think again, and have a proper debate. They must postpone these changes, get more evidence and stop dodging the uncomfortable facts that call into question their decision.