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Higher Education (Family Incomes)

Mr. Keith Bradley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many families with at least one child in higher education had an income of less than £10,000 in each of the last five years. [94440]

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Margaret Hodge [holding answer 30 January 2003]: I refer my right hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynn Jones) on 6 February 2003, Official Report, column 358W. Historic data are not available for students from families with parental residual ¹ income below the threshold for means-tested tuition fee support. The current student support scheme introduced in 1998–99, provides students with full fee support if their income is below the threshold. Under the mandatory awards scheme in

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operation up to 1997–98, students received a full means-tested maintenance grant if their residual income was below the threshold. The threshold is reviewed and uprated annually.

The following table shows the numbers of students entitled to full support (as outlined above) under each scheme for the academic years 1996–97 to 2000–01 and the relevant residual income thresholds in each year.

¹ Residual income is gross income less the allowances detailed in my Department's guidance, "Financial Support for Higher Education Students".

Number of higher education students (thousands) assessed to receive full student support in England and Wales⁽⁷³⁾Academic year 1996–97 to 2000–012

	Academic year(75)
	1996–97	1997–98	1998–99(76)	1999–2000	2000–01(77)
Residual income threshold level for dependent students (£)	16,050	16,450	16,945	17,370	17,805
Residual income threshold level for independent students (£)	12,700	13,105	13,405	14,700	15,070
Student support scheme students(78),(79)
Dependent students	—	—	69	148	194
Independent students	—	—	39	68	95
Total all students	—	—	108	216	289
Mandatory scheme students(80)
Dependent students	199	201	134	81	27
Independent students	144	137	77	40	12
Total all students	343	337	211	121	39
Total all students(81)
Dependent students	199	201	203	229	221
Independent students	144	137	116	108	107
Total all students	343	337	319	337	328

⁽⁷³⁾ The table shows awards made by local education authorities in England and Wales to students normally domiciled in their area.

⁽⁷⁴⁾ Provisional.

⁽⁷⁵⁾ New students in 1998–99 received support for maintenance through income-assessed grants (comprising about a quarter of the support available) and non income-assessed student loans (about three quarters of the support available). From 1999–2000, students who entered higher education from 1998–99 onwards received support for maintenance entirely through loans, of which approximately three-quarters of the value was non income-assessed.

⁽⁷⁶⁾ Data in 1998–99 include an estimated 15,000 student support scheme students in England and Wales who, because they did not expect to receive a contribution to their support from public funds did not make an application to their local authority.

⁽⁷⁷⁾ Data for academic year 2000–01 are provisional.

⁽⁷⁸⁾ Student support scheme funding arrangements in higher education came into effect from the start of the 1998–99 academic year, thus accounting for the apparent steep rise in student numbers through the academic years.

⁽⁷⁹⁾ Most new students in 1998–99, 1999–2000 and 2000–01 were expected to contribute up to £1,000, £1,025 and £1,050 respectively towards the cost of their tuition depending on family income.

⁽⁸⁰⁾ Students who entered higher education up to 1997–98 and those who entered in 1998–99 to whom the mandatory scheme funding arrangements applied received support for maintenance through income-assessed grants.

⁽⁸¹⁾ Totals may not add through due to roundings.

Maintenance Grant

Jeff Ennis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate he has made of the cost to his Department of introducing a maintenance grant of (a) £1,000 per annum, (b) £1,500 per annum and (c) £2,000 per annum for higher education students from households in the lowest (i) quartile and (ii) decile of annual income. [96393]

Margaret Hodge: The estimated costs of providing maintenance grants of (a) £1,000 per annum, (b) £1,500 per annum and (c) £2,000 per annum to students in the lowest (i) quartile and (ii) decile of annual income in 2001–02 are presented in the following table.

Estimated costs of maintenance grants in academic year 2001–02£ million

	Residual income
Level of grant	Lowest quartile	Lowest decile
£1,000	200	80
£1,500	300	120
£2,000	390	160

Note:

Figures have been individually rounded

These estimates are based on projected student numbers for English and Welsh domiciled students in UK Higher Education Institutions in 2001–02. As numbers increase so would the cost of providing grants to a fixed percentage. The figures in the table assume that all students either the lowest 25 per cent. or 10 per cent. qualify for the full amount of the grant and that those above these levels get no grant. In practice, means tested grants are almost always tapered out more gently above the threshold for entitlement of the full grant. This increases the costs.

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National Behaviour and Attendance Strategy

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on his national behaviour and attendance strategy. [97152]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: We are investing £470 million over the next three years in the national behaviour and attendance strategy to help tackle poor behaviour and absence from school, as well as introducing Fixed Penalty Notices and extending the use of Parenting Orders for persistent truancy offences.

£73 million will be spent on a universal element that will, through the behaviour and attendance strand of Key Stage 3, provide all secondary schools in England with behaviour and attendance auditing materials, training materials designed to help staff manage unacceptable behaviour, and a support structure. A further £396 million will be used to provide targeted packages through the behaviour and attendance strand of Excellence in Cities that will enable around 400 secondaries and approximately 1500 primaries to have multi-agency education and support teams for pupils and their families, police involvement with schools and more truancy sweeps.

Network Learning Communities

Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many designated specialist schools are involved in the network learning communities organised by the National College for School Leadership. [98029]

Mr. Miliband: There are 105 specialist schools involved in networked learning communities.

Renewable Energy

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what changes in unit payments for electricity have resulted from the switch by his Department to purchasing renewable energy which is exempt from the Climate Change Levy. [96480]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: In 2001–02 my Department purchased 10 per cent. of its electricity from renewable sources which were exempt from the Climate Change Levy. The overall bill was 0.06 per cent. higher than if no renewable electricity had been purchased.

School Exclusions

John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many problematic drug users (a) were temporarily excluded from school, (b) permanently excluded from school and (c) have one or more GCSEs in the last year for which figures are available. [98149]

Mr. Miliband: The information requested is not available centrally. The Department's regular data collections on pupils in schools and exclusions from

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school—mainly the Annual Schools' Census—do not record whether or not pupils are drug users. Similarly, pupil attainment data do not record this.

Following a review of data collected on exclusions, the department is planning to collect information from Local Education Authorities on both fixed term and permanent exclusions on a termly basis from this summer. We expect that this will capture the reason for exclusion.

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