Education Bill

My Lords, I have some sympathy with this amendment. However, one issue in particular concerns me: the fact that not only degree courses but access courses are subject to loans. As Members of the Committee will know, those who have not gone through the normal route of taking GCSEs and A-levels and entering university by that route, but instead apply to university later, often take courses which are regarded as being the equivalent of A-levels—they are called access courses—at colleges for education. These are normally two-year courses. Many of these students initially do GCSE courses and go on to an access course, so they often have between two and three years at the college of further education. Because these are level 3 courses, and because the people concerned are often over the age of 24, these are regarded as loan courses, and consequently many people will have five years of loans rather than three. Since, almost by definition, most of these people come from disadvantaged backgrounds, the whole problem of debt aversion is one of some difficulty. I am particularly concerned about the build-up of debt in these circumstances. The accumulation of debt from having to take on debt to put themselves through access courses, and then more debt on top of that to do degree courses, is going to be a major disincentive to using this route to those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Considerable numbers use this route at present. Could the Government look at this? It would be good to have some good news. I know that my right honourable friend Simon Hughes, when he was looking at the issue of access, picked this up, but I do not think anything has yet been done about it.