House of Commons Hansard Debates for 18 Jul 1990

Column 1093

Students (Housing Benefit)

Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West) : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. These regulations should be withdrawn because they are technically flawed and defective. It is centred around the allocation of access funds and the moneys will be disbursed under section 100-- [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : Order. The hon. Gentleman is trying to engage my attention and that of the House, and he deserves to be heard.

Mr. Meacher : As I have said, the regulation is centred around the access fund and the moneys will be disbursed under section 100 of the Education Act 1944 and section 73 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1945. No regulations have been produced by the Government under those sections. How can the House reach a decision before it has sight of the regulations which will determine how the access funds are to be distributed?

It may be that the Government do not intend to produce any such regulations. That would be worse still. Either way, it would be an abuse of Parliament for the regulations to be voted through tonight when they are technically flawed and deny the House the information on which to reach a proper decision. Will you, Madam Deputy Speaker, use your good offices with the Minister to see that the regulations are withdrawn until they are properly drafted?

Madam Deputy Speaker : I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. In the view of the Chair, the regulations are perfectly in order. That is a matter for debate, and I am sure that the Minister will have something to say about it.

9.56 pm

The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. Nicholas Scott) : I beg to move

That the draft Social Security Benefits (Student Loans and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 1990, which were laid before this House on 13th July, be approved.

The contents of the regulations have already been the subject of much debate in the Chamber and in another place. Only last week the House reiterated its support for the Government's policy of withdrawing students' entitlement to housing benefit. However, hon. Members will know that the regulations do not simply remove students' entitlement to housing benefit, income support and unemployment benefit : they define those vulnerable groups of students who will retain entitlement to housing benefit and income support--with one exception, which I shall come to later. They also provide for the treatment of top-up loans and payments from the access funds in the income-related benefits.

The regulations providing for this apply not only to students who retain entitlement to income support and housing benefit but to the partners of students who will continue to have access to benefits as now, including income support, housing benefit, community charge benefit and family credit. The regulations also provide for the new rate of student rent deduction and allowances for the next academic year.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Will the Minister explain how the difficult regulations affecting community

Column 1094

charge benefit for Scottish students in their fourth year at universities will apply? This is a difficulty that has been raised with the Department.

Mr. Scott : The hon. Gentleman might care to raise that matter later in the debate. I want to set out what the regulations are designed to achieve. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to deliver his remarks.

Two weeks ago the Government took what I believe was a helpful--

Mr. Dalyell : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Should there not be a Scottish Office Education Minister present for this debate? It may be unreasonable to ask the Minister to be aware of the details of Scottish education, but a Scottish Office Minister should be present.

Madam Deputy Speaker : It is not for the Chair to determine which Minister moves regulations.

Mr. Scott : Whatever worries the hon. Gentleman may have about Scottish students, I made the point during our debate recently that, in the last academic year--it will almost certainly be the same in the coming academic year--a record number of students in England and Wales applied for places in higher education. The same applies in Scotland. If the difficulties were so great, it is unlikely that we would have such a record both north and south of the border.

Some two weeks ago we took what I hope was the helpful, if unusual, step of placing in the Library proof copies of the Social Security Advisory Committee's report on the draft regulations so that hon. Members could study them and use them in our discussions. The Committee's report was published with the regulations. Hon. Members will therefore have had ample opportunity to examine its findings and will be aware that, far from the Committee denouncing the Government's proposals, as recent press reports may have led us to believe, most of them have been accepted by a majority of its members.

It is fair to say that much support was expressed in last week's debate for the general principle that students should be funded by the education maintenance system and not by social security benefits. That is the crux of our policy, as enshrined in the regulations. It was never intended that students should resort to the benefits system to the extent that they do. As I said last week, that was an unplanned outcome of developments in social security in recent years.

Mr. James Pawsey (Rugby and Kenilworth) : Is my right hon. Friend aware that applications for advanced education show a substantial increase this year, even though students are well aware of the changes proposed? Is he further aware that, for the forthcoming academic year, student support will be increased by about 25 per cent.? That includes the student loan of £420, which is interest-free.

Mr. Scott : My hon. Friend outlines points which were made strongly in last week's debate and which underline this evening's debate. Were everybody terrified about the prospect of student loans being the main thrust of support for students, I do not believe that record numbers of people would be applying for higher education.

Column 1095

In essence, I said last week--I reinforce it without apology tonight--that the objectives of social security policy are not the same as those for educational maintenance policy. The needs and expenditure patterns of students are not necessarily typical of the population as a whole. They have particular needs and are supported for a particular purpose--further, higher and postgraduate education. Through the education system, they will have access to a range of resources, including grants and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) said, top-up loans. In addition, access funds will be available to assist students who experience financial difficulties.

Mr. Andrew Smith (Oxford, East) : When will details of the access funds be available?

Mr. Scott : The details of the access funds for further, undergraduate and postgraduate education have been announced.

Mr. Smith : I hoped that it was obvious that I meant the details for students who, if the regulations are passed and their social security is withdrawn, will be in hardship--some in dire hardship. They cannot know, because the figures have not been announced for the allocations to institutions or the details of how those institutions will act as mini- local social security departments.

Mr. Scott : We are still some way away from the beginning of the academic year. The access funds will be distributed to the institutions concerned, but the thrust of the policy for their use is not that they should be unduly prescriptive but that there should be the maximum flexibility, so that those administering them at the institutions concerned can recognise hardship in individual cases and respond through them. That is the thrust of the policy, and it is right that it should be so handled.

Mr. Pawsey : Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the access funds have doubled from some £15 million to £30 million? Does he agree that that substantial sum will go a considerable way to alleviating student hardship?

Mr. Scott : I very much accept and welcome my hon. Friend's point. As he said, not only have funds been increased, but my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Education and Science have said that they will carefully monitor their adequacy.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is extremely important to monitor the effects on disabled students? I appreciate that my right hon. Friend has gone a long way in that direction, but will he keep a careful eye on the access of disabled students to universities?

Mr. Scott : My hon. Friend will recognise that, wearing my other hat as the Minister with responsibilities for disabled people, I am particularly concerned about the needs of disabled students. They are recognised in the underlying system, but I am sure that education institutions will take particular care to monitor the effects of the changes on disabled students.

Column 1096

Mr. Tony Worthington (Clydebank and Milngavie) : If it is no longer any part of the social security system to support students, why is it any part of an education institution to judge hardship?

Mr. Scott : In a sense the hon. Gentleman has put his finger exactly on the point. It is much easier for the institutions of higher and further education to assess what amounts to hardship in the student population than it is for the social security system across the country, which is addressing an entirely different client group. That must be absolutely manifest. I said last week, and I underline today, that I believe that it is much better and will be more flexible and sensitive to the needs of students for education institutions rather than the social security system to do that, however much admiration I have for the social security system that I play a modest part in administering.

In the context of the range of resources that I was outlining, the Government are proposing to withdraw students' entitlement to income support, housing benefit and unemployment benefit. As I have argued in the past few minutes as well as last week, the alternative provisions available through the education system will provide adequate resources for students to live on. We accept that some students will have financial needs beyond the level provided by the grant and loan. That is why we have been exploring the role of the access funds in meeting any residual hardship. However, I do not believe that it is necessary for the generality of students to fall back on the social security system.

Mr. Dalyell : Can we have just a few facts? When the Minister talks about the generality of students, what figures are available to the Department of Education and Science or to his own Department about the number of students from the lower income groups? There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that great universities such as Edinburgh are not getting the students from relatively low income groups which they would have expected a decade ago. I have no reason to believe that the experience of Edinburgh university is any different from that of a number of other great universities.

Mr. Scott : Surveys are carried out by the Universities Central Council on Admissions and other bodies into the social backgrounds and income levels of students.

Ms. Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) : It is clear that young people from low-income backgrounds are under-represented in higher education.

Mr. Scott : Despite the usual sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), we survey these matters. My right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Education and Science are concerned that entry into further and higher education represents a broad spectrum of income and social background. That monitoring and surveying will continue. However, I repeat what I have said at least twice already : we have record applications in England, Wales and Scotland that are not confined to those from the higher income groups. I am satisfied with that.

I imagine that a number of those who have intervened will want to make their own speeches. As this is a limited debate, I should hate to talk out the motion.

Column 1097

I imagine that the House will be somewhat relieved to hear that I do not intend to go through each of the regulations in detail, but I should like to describe some of their main features.

Regulations 2 and 3 relate to community charge benefit and family credit respectively. They deal entirely with the way in which top-up loans and payments from the access funds are to be treated in the calculation of these benefits. I should perhaps remind the House that registered students are entitled to a special relief and have to pay only 20 per cent. of the community charge. Subsequently, they are not entitled to claim community charge benefit. These regulations are needed to ensure that these payments are taken into account when claims are made by a non-student partner of a registered student. Similarly, single students cannot normally claim family credit because they cannot satisfy the requirement to be in employment for at least 24 hours a week. The provisions of regulation 3 are required to cover claims from families where one of the partners is a student and the other parent is in work and satisfies the 24-hour condition. The rules for the treatment of top-up loans and access fund payments similarly apply to housing benefit and income support and are covered by regulations 4(9) and 5(7). Essentially, top-up loans will be apportioned as a weekly amount for the full year. Existing regulations mean that the maximum amount of loan available to the student will be assumed even where the student has chosen to take up a lower amount of loan or no loan at all. However, we also propose that the weekly amounts of loan will attract a disregard of £10, and that means that the vast majority of students will enjoy the full value of their top-up loan in the first year of the new scheme. I believe that that responds positively to the recommendation made by the Social Security Advisory Committee.

However, the disregard will apply only for so long as the recipient remains a student. I hope that the House would agree with that. If a student leaves a course before its conclusion, the actual value of any loan taken out will be taken into account in assessing benefit entitlement for the remainder of the academic year covered by that loan.

Our intention, which we clearly stated in our response to the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee and in our letter consulting the local authority associations, was that the disregard on top-up loan income should be subjected to the overriding disregard of £10 on all unearned income within the income--related benefits. That would mean that a student in receipt of a top-up loan and other income attracting a disregard would only benefit from a total disregard of £10 on the whole of his income.

However, I must confess that the regulations as currently drafted do not achieve that intention. This omission came to light only after the draft regulations were laid before Parliament. We therefore intend to correct the position at the earliest opportunity by including the necessary amendments in the separate regulation to cover the concession on deaf students which I announced last week and which we will be laying before Parliament shortly.

Mr. Meacher : The Minister is asking us to pass the regulations, which presumably have received careful scrutiny by parliamentary draftsmen and by legal opinion. If he is now saying that they are defective--I will suggest further reasons why they are defective and should be

Column 1098

withdrawn--should he not take them away and bring them back to the House only when they have been correctly drafted?

Mr. Scott : It is fairly typical of the hon. Gentleman to go over the top in responding to what is a modest error in the regulations. We will shortly have another opportunity to implement the concession on deaf students. I am sure that it is right that we should make that modest amendment at that time.

The regulations before us tonight also specify that payments for hardship, made from the access funds, are not to be treated in the same way as the grant.

Mr. Dalyell : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I ask for the opinion of the Chair on the following point : is it proper that the House should be asked to pass a verdict--that is what we are being asked to do tonight--on legislation when we hear from the mouth of the proposer of that legislation from the Dispatch Box that it is apparently defective? This is entirely new. If it is considered defective by the parliamentary draftsmen, is it not an insult to the House to bring it before us?

Madam Deputy Speaker : I attempted to deal with that point of order at the beginning of the debate. It is a matter for debate, not a matter for the Chair. It is the responsibility of the Government, and for the Minister to answer those points in the debate.

Mr. Scott : We all know that regulations affecting social security matters are complex. However, it was right for me this evening to acknowledge that there had been a small error in the regulations and to explain how, having an early opportunity before us, we intend to correct it.

Mr. Dick Douglas (Dunfermline, West) : When?

Mr. Scott : I said, shortly.

Mr. Douglas : We need to know when, especially as some Scottish universities and institutions will commence their academic sessions in September.

Mr. Scott : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not present when we debated these matters last week. I made it absolutely clear then that everything would be in place in good time for the new academic year, not just in England and Wales but in Scotland. They will be in place ready for institutions and authorities to be able to make the necessary arrangements. I give the hon. Gentleman that clear undertaking.

I began to explain that payments for hardship made from access funds are not to be treated in the same way as the grant. The payments are discretionary, and it is intended therefore that they be treated in the same way as voluntary payments. That means that regular payments will attract a disregard of £10, and one-off lump sum payments will fall to be treated as capital. In practice, however, we do not expect benefit recipients to be a priority group for the receipt of access fund payments.

The regulations relating to the treatment of income provide for the annual increase in the element of the student grant allowed for books and equipment. The allowance for those items is disregarded in calculating a student's grant income.

Regulation 4 deals with housing benefit. That regulation excludes full-time students from eligibility, on the basis that they are deemed not liable for housing costs.

Column 1099

However, the regulations also provide for a partner of a student to be treated as liable for rent. That measure ensures that the partners of students will have access to housing benefit, even when the student is in fact the tenant.

Hon. Members will wish to note that the majority of the Social Security Advisory Committee members have accepted the Government's proposal to remove students' entitlement to housing benefit.

Ms. Short : I am sure that, whatever the differences between us, the Minister would not wish to mislead the House. The majority of the committee accepted removal on condition that there was a fall-back right for the Government to give people a grant in the summer if they would otherwise be in distress. The Government have not accepted that condition, so the majority of the committee do not support the Government.

Mr. Scott : I have considered the committee's recommendations with some care. I do not think that it took account of the availability of access funds when hardship existed or of the ability of local education authorities to give grants to students during the long vacation specifically if they were experiencing hardship.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West) : The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) made was that the Minister was possibly misleading the House. He is now attempting to cover himself by saying what the social security commissioner should have said. He has not told the House what the Social Security Advisory Committee actually said.

Mr. Scott : The Social Security Advisory Committee is just that--an advisory committee. The Government and Ministers have a responsibility to listen to its advice and to assess it against the reality of the situation and the totality of help that is available to students in the circumstances. That is why the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee and the response by my right hon. Friend have been published with the regulations.

No doubt the hon. Gentleman will have a chance later to make those points, and I shall seek to respond to them. I am not in the least attempting to deceive the House. I am stating the situation as it is and what resources are available to students in response to the situation in which they are removed from entitlement to housing benefit.

Regulation 4(6), as well as excluding students from housing benefit, sets out those categories of students who will retain entitlement. Those categories also apply to income support and include lone parents, disabled students, pensioner students, student couples with dependent children and students under 19 in further education. We had intended that the definition of a disabled student--for benefit purposes--should be on the basis of those who meet the criteria for the disability premium, together with a transitional provision to ensure that those disabled students who had previously received income support as students on the basis of their disability should remain eligible for income support and housing benefit. That transitional provision will also apply to those who received income support as disabled students while in relevant education up to the age of 19.

Column 1100

Hon. Members will be aware that we now propose to extend the definition of a disabled student to include students who are eligible for the local education authority disabled students allowance by reason of deafness. However, as I implied, it is first necessary to consult the local authority associations on the proposal. It is for that reason that we have decided to introduce this measure by a separate set of regulations which will be laid before Parliament at the earliest opportunity. The regulations will be drafted to embrace students who are excluded from receiving actual payment of the disabled students allowance on grounds of parental means, and also students who fall within the discretionary award arrangements and who receive an award akin to the DSA, by reason of deafness.

Finally, the regulations relating to housing benefit provide for the annual increase in the student rent deduction. This takes account of the uprated element in the student grant for accommodation costs. Regulation 5 excludes most students from entitlement to income support on the basis that they are not available for work during the period of study. The regulations redefine the period of study to include the long vacations falling within the student's course, but not the long vacation following the student's final year. Similarly, regulation 6, dealing with unemployment benefit, prevents students from being treated as available for work for any day on which they are a student.

The Government believe that students have made a conscious decision to follow a course of study and are not therefore unemployed in the normal sense of the word. Nor can it be said that students following a full-time course are in any sense available for full-time work. Unemployment benefit is intended to provide financial support for people who face the unforeseen contingency of unemployment, not those who have opted out of the full-time labour market. Similarly, income support, other than for those in vulnerable groups not required to be available for work, is intended to assist only those people who are available for, and actively seeking, full- time work.

Currently students are ineligible for these two benefits during term time and the short vacations. We are now making extra resources available through the education system to ensure that students have sufficient alternative support for the long vacation.

Doubtless Opposition Members will remind me that the Social Security Advisory Committee is opposed to the Government's policy on unemployment benefit. It argues that, if the contribution condition is met, unemployment benefit should be paid.-- [Interruption.] Well, I shall put what I hope is an equally reasonable response to that argument.

Full-time students do not meet the necessary conditions of entitlement. I do not accept that students are unemployed in the same way as other claimants. Moreover--as I am sure the House will recognise--an adequate contribution record alone has never been sufficient justification for receiving unemployment benefit. There have always been additional conditions to be satisfied. In a previous report, the committee did not adopt its current line on the contributory principle. In 1986, it accepted that unemployment benefit should not be paid to students in the short vacations since educational provision covered those periods. To pay unemployment benefit, the committee accepted, would be to duplicate provision for

Column 1101

personal maintenance. The Government believe that this argument remains a compelling one, and thus reject the committee's finding in its current report.

Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro) : Does the Minister agree that one problem is that the provisions seem to open the way dramatically to changing the position of part-time seasonal workers? It could be argued that, although they are in a different position from students, they have deliberately opted into that way of life. Many people in my constituency have seasonal employment.

Mr. Scott : This is a debate about students, not seasonal workers. We have made certain adjustments to the way in which seasonal workers are treated for unemployment benefit. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt find other opportunities to raise that subject. However, tonight we are discussing student maintenance and whether they may be maintained through the education maintenance system or through the social security system.

Before I leave this issue, I draw the House's attention to the fact that the majority on the Social Security Advisory Committee accepted the Government's proposal to remove students' underlying entitlement to income support-- [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Ladywood would like me to give way, I shall of course do so.

Ms. Short : By a majority of 8:6, the committee agreed on certain conditions. The Government have not met them, so the committee is not with the Government.

Mr. Scott : I have spoken about the role of the Social Security Advisory Committee. We do not have to accept every word and condition that it puts forward. The broad thrust of the committee's recommendations was in agreement with what the Government are doing. Anyone who knows about the social security system will recognise that it would not be logical for us to say that students are not entitled to unemployment benefit but are entitled to income support. Broadly the same conditions apply to the receipt of both benefits. Of course, a safety net is necessary in these circumstances. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science is establishing the access funds, about which we had some exchange of views earlier, to assist students in financial difficulties. As I said earlier in response to an intervention, local education authorities have the discretion to award vacation hardship allowances during the long vacations. Those can be worth more than £50 a week to the student. The costs to the education authority are fully reimbursed. In those circumstances, we do not believe that there is a case for retaining a social security safety net. The existence of such an arrangement could only provide an incentive for the access fund administrators and local education authorities to withdraw from their responsibilities. Our policies are clearly set out and they are that students should be maintained by the education maintenance system. We believe that both the access funds and the LEAs are up to the task.

I should like to explain one other provision. Although the regulations are intended to come into force on1 September, many students will still be on their long vacation at that time. It would obviously not be right to take benefit away from students before they were in a position to call on the new support arrangements--loans

Column 1102

and access funds--which will be open to them. Regulation 7 specifically addresses that point : no students will have their benefit entitlement withdrawn this year until they resume their course of study.

The regulations give effect to the Government's proposals on student entitlement to benefits. The issues that they raise have been debated only recently in this House and at length in another place. I am pleased to present them, and I commend them to the House. 10.26 pm

Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West) : Madam Deputy Speaker, I raised with you at the outset of the debate the point that the regulations are technically flawed and should be withdrawn. You advised me that that was a matter not for the Chair but for the House. Therefore, I seek the wider agreement of the House that these defective regulations should be withdrawn and brought back only when they have been rectified. They are defective because in large measure they deal with the distribution of the access funds. The Minister spent a fair amount of time talking about the access funds. They are to be distributed under section 100 of the Education Act 1944 and section 73 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1945, yet the regulations under those sections that will govern the distribution of access funds have not been made available.

I repeat my question. How can Parliament reach a proper judgment on the regulations until it has prior knowledge of how they will be carried through? That is exactly the point made earlier in an intervention in the Minister's speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith). The Minister simply did not seem to understand the thrust of the question. It is a very serious question, and I hope that the House understands it. The Minister has already been arrogant. He admitted that the drafting of the regulations was defective but did not even apologise for it. He simply said loftily that he would correct the error at some future date.

If the Minister admits that the drafting is defective, and if there is considerably more serious defective drafting such as I suggested, will he consider that the right course is to withdraw the regulations and redraft them so that the House can consider proper regulations? Perhaps the Minister might like to answer that question. I am not asking a rhetorical question, but asking the Minister whether he will do so.

Mr. Scott : I have no intention of withdrawing the regulations. I shall make the modest amendment when we lay the regulation about deaf students before the House.

Mr. Meacher : I am not merely making a point about deaf students. I am asking how the House can reach a decision about access funds, which are at the centre of this debate, when hon. Members have no idea how they will be distributed to relieve hardship.

Mr. Scott : There is no question of the regulations being withdrawn. The access funds will be distributed to the institutions from the three different funds, and it will be up to the institutions to administer them flexibly and sympathetically, according to students' needs. It has never been intended that the access funds should be controlled by regulation.

Column 1103

Mr. Meacher : That is exactly what I suspected. It is an important point, which the Minister had not previously admitted. I am glad to have it out of his own mouth.

The statement that the Secretary of State is required to make to the Social Security Advisory Committee says at page 3, paragraph 14 :

"Although some central guidance will be given on the administration of the Funds, it is not the Government's intention to fetter the discretion of institutions in determining how the Funds are used." That is exactly the point--either the guidance is significant, in which case Parliament has a right to prior sight of it before it is asked to pass this legislation, or it is so insignificant as not to fetter the discretion of institutions, in which case Parliament should not pass the regulations if they give such blanket and untrammelled financial powers to the Secretary of State.

It is a serious point because within the past month Parliament has already been admonished by the courts for its carelessness in nodding through--I think the judge's phrase was "Homer nodded", which refers to Parliament, rather than Homer--such vague and open-ended powers to the Secretary of State. That was Mr. Justice Purchas' complaint about the unfettered powers voted to the Secretary of State over the administration of the social fund. However, one month later, we are being asked to do exactly the same again. That is why I ask every hon. Member who cares about the rule of law and having a check on the powers of the Executive-- [Laughter.] I know that it causes great mirth to Ministers, but it is a serious matter. If Parliament is to exercise proper control over the Executive, it must reject the regulations until they have been redrafted so that they are genuinely accountable to the House--which at present they are not.

A further absurdity about the regulations, if they are not amended, is that if access funds provided under sections 100 or 73 are to be excluded from income taken into account under the regulations relating to income support or family credit, that requires specific regulations. If the Government do not propose to make such regulations under those sections, which is what the Minister said, access funds will be taken into account and will diminish student benefits. It is wholly unacceptable that Parliament should be asked to pass the regulations tonight when the crassly defective drafting leaves open such perverse consequences.

I make no apology for the time that I have spent talking about whether Parliament should pass the regulations, but I am obliged to speak briefly on the issue of substance. I shall immediately disabuse the Minister of a canard that he continues to peddle--he did so again tonight. The issue is not whether students should continue to be supported in part by the social security system. The Opposition accept, as do the National Union of Students and others, that social security benfits are not the ideal means of student financial support. The issue is whether the proposed alternative form of support is adequate, and in our view it patently is not.

The Government's whole case is that the average benefit received by students is about £315 a year, while the student loan is £420, so the average student will be better off. That argument is flawed on at least three counts. First, the research was undertaken by an organisation called Research Services Limited in May 1987, and is now more than three years old, so the figures are badly out of date. Secondly, it is an average figure, which fails to take

Column 1104

account of huge urban and regional variations in cost. Private rents for students vary between £25 a week outside London, £45 a week in greater London and £60 in inner London. The beauty of housing benefit is that it is what the Government are always looking for--a targeted benefit. It alone takes into account these huge variations, while the Minister is deliberately switching to a scheme that does not.

Thirdly--by far the most important point--the figure is simply wrong. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, in its evidence to the Social Security Advisory Committee, said that in the south-east a student stands to lose £560 in housing benefit during the academic year. We may accept some leeway in the precision of that figure. But the Government's figure of £315 is not merely low, it is ridiculous, and it is absurd that the Government base their whole case on that. The Government say that access funds will be set up to meet hardship. The Minister repeated it tonight. The total of access funds for undergraduates will be only £14 million, which works out at the equivalent of only £27 per student. Such sums clearly cannot even begin to compensate for the shortfall through loss of benefit. That is the key point which the Minister has simply failed to address. It is perfectly clear that a significant number of students will suffer serious hardship if the regulations go through. However much the Minister tried to wriggle when my hon. Friends were pressing him, that is contrary to the strongly stated intentions not merely of a minority of the SSAC, but of the united committee.

Since the Minister was so unwilling to state the view of the whole committee, let me now mention it to the House. The SSAC said : "We believe unanimously that there must be a safety net which ensures that students are not left destitute".

When my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East raised the issue with the Minister a week ago, he gave this interesting response : "The committee said that, during the long vacation, some students might be particularly hard hit, and that they should have recourse to a safety net. There is already a safety net--the power for local education authorities to pay hardship payments."--[ Official Report, 9 July 1990 ; Vol. 176, c. 102.]

He said much the same again tonight. Tonight we want to know what guidance will be sent to local education authorities to encourage them to exercise this role and, more importantly, what funding will be made available to local education authorities to meet this hardship, and what guarantee can the Minister now give the House that all students will be catered for. Until he can answer those questions, I submit that his solicitude on this matter is not worth more than a pinch of salt.

Finally, for postgraduates the Government have clearly established a link between the provision of loans and the loss of benefits. On those grounds, we strongly contend that extension of the loss of benefits to those who are not eligible to loans--postgraduates--is outside the scope and intentions of the Education (Student Loans) Act 1990, and there is no other provision or primary legislation on which to base this sweeping disentitlement. That is another clear legislative reason why these regulations should be rejected. It is not enough for the Minister to say, as he has, that the DES recently announced a £400 increase in postgraduate support. The current studentship awards were set in place in October 1989 ; no increase is planned

Next Section

Home Page