Education Bill

I speak to Amendment 148, which is very different in approach to Amendment 145G, but I believe there are some similarities, as it is essential that we truly believe that part-time students have access to loans to cover fees, and should be on a par with full-time students, pro rated of course to give them the same opportunities that full-time students have had for years. I am delighted that the coalition Government are offering loans for fees for part-time undergraduates for the first time. After fees were introduced for the first time in 1997, it was always iniquitous that the previous Government did not provide any access to loans for fees for part-time students, many of whom came from backgrounds where they were often the first person in their family to go to university, and came from a low-income background; exactly the sort of group that we should be encouraging. With over 40 per cent of undergraduate students in the UK studying part-time, this is not just a small group of students being disenfranchised from the previous system; it is close to half of them. The current BIS adverts are rightly trying to set out the real financial arrangements for the new student finance system. They have the snappy phrase, ““Start to repay when you graduate””, which is a very important message about the new system that many do not understand. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who wrote to me on 3 September setting out the details of the thinking behind the two issues that we raise in our amendment. First, it does seem extraordinary that part-time students might be charged a different rate of interest from full-time students, and therefore I am grateful to the noble Lord for making it clear in his letter that it is the present Government’s intention that rates of interest for part-time and full-time students will be the same. This is good news. My amendment would make this plain in the Bill, and I am happy with the Minister’s assurance. The second part of the amendment, though, addresses an anomaly which remains. The proposal to implement part-time fee loans risks undermining the principle of equity which I thought the coalition Government agreement had aimed to achieve. It should be noted, however, as has already been raised, that this equity is only on fee loans, because part-time students are still not eligible for means-tested maintenance loans and grants. The real difficulty with the Government’s proposals is that part-time students should start to repay their loans from the April three years after they commence studying, if their earnings reach £21,000. While I think this is probably a fairly small group of students, I do know from my experience in higher education that mature students often make the decision to study while working either part-time or full-time, and while an income of £21,000 sounds like a good deal for a 21 year-old, it is not necessarily a high salary for someone in their thirties or forties with home and family responsibilities to juggle alongside their study. In particular for single parents, often but not always mothers, it can be a very fine decision about whether they can afford to study alongside work. But there is also the fundamental question of equity. A full-time student undergraduate on a four-year course, whether an engineer or a linguist, for example, will not start to repay until they finish their course—four and a half years. Part-time students, though, are asked to start repaying at three and a half years, regardless of the number of modules they are taking, and over what period. Simply by virtue of being part-time students, none of them will have concluded their course by three and a half years. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, expressed some concern to me about an open-ended commitment if we change the arrangements to ensure that no part-time students start to repay until they finish their course, which might be 10 or even 15 years on, which is unlikely. I accept the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara made about six years, but that is also unusual. I understand that the vast majority of part-time students have completed their course by the fifth year. I am not arguing for a complete deferral, but a move to defer the repayment starting at four and a half years has the merit of including the majority of part-time students concluding by that time, with only a very few going on beyond five years of study. Additionally, this arrangement may also impact on those adults taking Level 3 courses part time, who are now eligible for loans for fees. These part-time students are 84 per cent of the total currently taking Level 3 courses. I ask the Minister for reassurance that these students would also not start repaying before they complete in the same way that I am arguing for part-time undergraduates. I have recently received a copy of a letter that the Minister for Universities and Skills has written to million+, responding to another problem in the arrangements for regulating fees for part-time students in universities. Because it is so recent, and because it is highly technical, I am not asking the Minister to respond today, but would be grateful for a written response in due course. Because it is a highly technical one, my view is that it is not appropriate to have it on the face of the Bill, but it does need to be aired, because it is in the regulations, and may cause some chaos. The proposal aims to restrict part-time fee loans on 75 per cent of a £9,000 fee in an academic year. This is a completely arbitrary cap, and I worry that to have drafted it shows little understanding of the academic framework, or that part-time and full-time study alike is based on the 120 credits required for a full-time course, rather than on a percentage of intensity. In practice, there is a good deal of flexibility, which reflects the differing circumstances of part-time students, for instance in terms of work and family commitments and the number of modules that students have been able to study in previous years. It is not 25 per cent, 25 per cent, 25 per cent, 25 per cent; it can often be 20 per cent, 50 per cent, 20 per cent, 10 per cent. Students simply do not study in modules which are nicely linked with percentage intensity, and the proposal will create unnecessary and avoidable administrative complexity in universities, with the potential for part-time students to be levied different charges, part of which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to earlier. The BIS proposal is not even linked with the 75 per cent of the full-time fee charged, but with 75 per cent of a £9,000 fee—the higher fee cap. This has the effect of undermining the principle of equity of treatment for full-time and part-time students, and allows part-time students to be charged proportionally more that their full-time peers, according to the full-time fee levied in the university. It will also undoubtedly restrict the potential to incentivise more flexible learning opportunities in the context of part-time study. This is not only a Government aspiration, but is also in the Exchequer’s interest, because part-time students, unlike their full-time counterparts, are not eligible to claim means-tested maintenance grants or loans. In the letter to million+ from the Minister, David Willetts, he talks about regulation, but there is no reason to regulate part-time fees, other than to ensure that fee loans are available on a basis which does not exceed pro rata of the full-time fee. I fear that the real reason why this system is being proposed is made clear in the last paragraph, which reveals that officials have already given a brief to the Student Loans Company to design a system that fits within the 75 per cent proposal set out by BIS. The letter says, "““The Student Loans Company is also now sufficiently advanced in its systems design that a change of this size could not be implemented without putting the launch of the service at risk. We will though, of course, monitor the rollout of this new system, and respond as necessary if clear evidence of needs emerges””." These proposals are perpetuating policies and funding regimes which treat flexible and part-time learning as a percentage of full-time, missing the opportunity to align flexible learning with the credit system and the needs of students—all before the legislation has been passed or the debate on the primary legislation has concluded in Parliament. I repeat: given the short notice and the technical nature of this issue, I do not expect the Minister to reply today, but I hope that she can help with a written reply in due course. Let us give a cheer that at last the Government propose equity of experience for part-time students, but the interest rate, the time when students start to repay or the financial arrangements for taking modules are all at risk because of some of the detailed small print that sits behind the Bill. I hope that the Minister will be able to help us provide that equality of access that the coalition Government seek and which those of us on these Benches wholeheartedly support.