§ 4. Mr. Bostonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will review the system by which grants for higher education are awarded to students by local authorities with a view to eliminating anomalies and obtaining a more uniform pattern throughout the country so that, in particular, a student is not denied a grant because he resides in a particular area.
§ Mr. CroslandThe Education Act, 1962, and regulations made under it ensure general uniformity of treatment for virtually all qualified British students following first degree and comparable courses; and similar treatment is given to all recognised students at teacher training etablishments. Further education courses outside these fields vary very considerably in scope and character. The law therefore confers discretion on local education authorities and I have no proposals for altering this at the present time.
§ Mr. BostonDoes not the right hon. Gentleman realise that a considerable amount of hardship is being caused because, while some county councils award grants, in exactly similar circumstances other county councils do not, and that it would be very valuable to find out the extent of the hardship being caused over the whole country? Once we have that information, would it not be a good idea 676 to have a review of this system? Would my right hon. Friend also accept that the members of the last Government have some responsibility to bear because they were asked to examine this matter and did not do so?
§ Mr. CroslandI am, of course, willing to look at this, and I know that my hon. Friend has been good enough to write to me about three particular cases. The difficulty is the extreme variety of courses in further education. The hope which we all have is to obtain the maximum possible degree of consistency without losing the flexibility which is necessary to meet the great variety of demand.
§ Mr. LubbockIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that as part of the post-graduate course in librarianship at the North-Western Polytechnic students are required to undertake study tours of Continental libraries and that the Kent County Council is the only local education authority, as far as I am aware, which does not make any grant to students for this purpose?
§ Mr. HamlingIt is a Tory council.
§ Mr. CroslandPerhaps the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) would write to me about that matter.
§ Mr. TinnWill my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is still a great disparity between the attitudes of different authorities in their treatment of applicants for places in colleges of further education like Ruskin College, Oxford? Will he consider making provision for his Department to award a certain number of grants as a kind of second tier award?
§ Mr. CroslandI should not like to commit myself on the particular point about making grants, but I am certainly willing to look at this again with a completely open mind.
§ Sir E. BoyleIs it not true that the whole basis of the 1962 Act was that grants in certain circumstances should be mandatory on local authorities and in other cases they were optional? Will the Minister accept that although we on this side would be quite happy for this to be looked at again to see whether the boundaries are rightly drawn and even, perhaps, ready to contemplate further legislation on the subject, we should 677 nevertheless think it a big departure to say that all grants should be absolutely mandatory, with no discretion allowed to local education authorities in respect of grants for any courses?
§ Mr. CroslandI agree with that. It is not possible to make all grants mandatory because of the extraordinary variety of the courses offered in the whole range of further education.