Skills minister hints at changes to student maintenance regime

Labour’s new skills minister has given her strongest indication yet that the new government is looking at improving the support students receive to study in England.

Baroness Smith of Malvern told a fringe session at the party’s conference in Liverpool that revising maintenance support was crucial if the party wanted to meet its goals on widening access to higher education.

Student loans have lagged behind inflation in recent years and the new government has come under pressure to reintroduce grants to cover more of the cost of study for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“We totally hear the message that cost of living has impacted students almost more than any other group,” Baroness Smith told the event hosted by the Policy Institute at King’s College London.  

“If we want to have the types of changes in access we’ve talked about, maintenance has to be a part of what we are thinking about.”

The minister said that “more flexibility” was needed in how degree courses are accessed and delivered to fit around people’s work, family and personal commitments. “There can’t be only one route or one shot at success,” she said.

But, while ministers remain committed to the Lifelong Learning Entitlement that is due to be introduced in 2026, she said “we want to give really careful thought to how we deliver it in a way that doesn’t result in a lot of dead weight”.

Baroness Smith said that the government’s response to the current funding challenges within the sector will involve both short-term and long-term solutions.

She signalled a commitment to reducing what she called a “persistent and widening gap” in access and said that people should be actively encouraged to think about entering higher education.

A new international education strategy for the sector was also needed, according to Baroness Smith, following the recent shift in tone that is more welcoming to students from overseas.

Dame Margaret Hodge, a former Labour universities minister who stepped down as an MP at the last election, told delegates that the “easiest way” of saving some institutions from financial hardship was through international students, despite concerns about immigration.

She said were she back in the Department for Education, any money that was available would be “shoved into” early years education, which is where governments “can make the biggest difference”.

If money was available for post-compulsory education, Dame Margaret said it should be spent on further education, leaving higher education facing “very difficult decisions”.

Dame Margaret said the sector had been “incredibly well protected during the austerity years” and there was still a culture of asking the government for more money when there are problems that need to be fixed.

She said the sector was too competitive and “very top heavy” and bureaucratic and “should not be trying to do everything”.

She said if she were minister she would “rejig” the student loan system to “put more cash in the hands of working-class kids”. This would, she said, have to come at the expense of middle-class students but she questioned why taxpayers’ money was being spent, via student loans, on helping those from wealthier backgrounds live away from home.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com