HC Deb 30 January 1970 vol 794 cc1976-86

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

4.2 p.m.

Mr. James Dickens (Lewisham, West)

I am grateful for the opportunity of raising the case of Mrs. J. M. Basnett, who is a constituent of mine, and who has raised with me the extremely important question of the double deduction from grants made to certain married women students at teacher's training colleges.

Before I discuss the details of the case, may I turn to the question of where the responsibility rests in this matter. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read an extract from a letter I received on 28th January, signed by Sir William Houghton, Education Officer of the Inner London Education Authority, which is the paying authority in this case, dealing with the position of the authority in respect of the payment of awards.

Sir William writes: I understand that you are interested in the case of Mrs. J. M. Basnett, who is receiving a teacher training grant from the Authority. I write to confirm what one of my assistants told you this morning, namely, that Mrs. Basnett's grant is assessed in accordance with conditions laid down by the Secretary of State for Education and Science as embodied in Circular 21/68 This circular confers no discretion on the Authority to vary the amount of standard grant or the method of assessment. So the responsibility rests with the Department of Education and Science.

Mrs. Basnett is in receipt of a grant under conditions laid down in paragraphs 13 and 35 of Circular 21/68. She is a married woman who married before attaining the age of 20, while attending Stockwell Teacher Training College in London, where she is studying now. She was a student in the college in her first year when she married and her husband was in his third year. When they married, they set up a separate household and they were then both in receipt of the standard award which is about £395. Mr. Basnett has completed his studies and is earning his living.

Upon marriage, Mrs. Basnett's award was reduced from £395 to £275 and, moreover, a further contribution is expected, because she has married before the age of 21, from her parents, and this contribution is expected to be maintained throughout the length of her course, or until she attains the age of 25.

It seems that the assumption behind this arrangement is founded upon the Report of the Anderson Committee in 1960, Cmnd. 1051. In paragraph 225, discussing the circumstances in which the parental contribution should be waived, that committee said: We deal first with the question whether marriage should by itself be sufficient to secure the waiving of the parental contribution. This question now looms larger than it used to, since the general tendency is to marry younger. We do not, however, see any reason, if the system of parental contributions is retained, for not expecting a contribution simply because the student is married. Fart of the burden of my case this afternoon is that this assertion made by this committee in its report to Parliament, without any supporting evidence of any description, is now totally out of date. The report was prepared between June, 1958, and May, 1960, and in the decade which has elapsed we have witnessed wide-ranging social changes in attitudes to marriage and in the attitudes of parents towards married sons and daughters. It is a nonsense in 1970 to continue to expect parents to support married children who are receiving higher education.

The position is made the more anomalous by recent changes in our laws. For example, in recent years we have passed legislation to allow persons to marry at under the age of 21 without parental consent. Moreover, my hon. Friend and I were both undergraduates in our time at Oxford University and I dare say that he came across, as I came across, many instances of colleagues who were suffering because of the negative attitude of their parents to higher education. If students can be said in many cases to have suffered because of the attitude of their parents towards higher education, because of the unwillingness of parents in some instances to support children receiving higher education, how much more must this be true when the sons and daughters have married, and especially when in some instances the parents may have disapproved of the marriage. I stress that these are not the circumstances in Mrs. Basnett's case, because her parents have been extremely generous and cooperative throughout.

If my hon. Friend believes that we should reform the system and decide that parental contributions should not be taken into account for married students, he will no doubt say that this would cost the country £X million per annum. I am well aware of that and I recognise that there are many claims on the total of public expenditure. However, I make the point, in passing, that the Government would recoup some of that by obtaining more revenue from parents because of the cessation of the income tax relief for a dependent child.

I pass from that aspect to another. In this instance, there is also clearly a case of sex discrimination. For example, Mrs. Basnett had a woman's allowance at the age of 20 and went to live with her husband in a separate household. Her grant fell from £395 to a married woman's grant of £275. This is in accordance with paragraph 13(c) of Circular 21/68 which states that a married woman who resides in the matrimonial home should receive £275. That puzzles me somewhat, because a boy aged 20 who marries, with an earning wife, would presumably receive the same amount of grant as that which he would have received had he been single and living in lodgings, namely, £395. In short, there is a clear distinction made in the amount of grant between a married woman student and a married man student, and that seems to be quite indefensible.

It is made all the more indefensible by the fact that the Anderson Committee stated, in paragraph 254: Traditionally a husband is expected to maintain his wife, but a wife is not expected to maintain her husband. We first considered whether it would be right to expect a husband to contribute to the expense of a university education of his wife, while not expecting a wife to contribute for her husband, and came to the conclusion that in the field with which we are concerned any such distinction would be unreal. At present"— that is, 1960— it is just as common for a wife to be earning while her husband is studying, as for a wife to be studying while her husband is earning. Such legal obligations as a husband has for maintaining his wife do not extend to providing her with a university education. The choice must be between making a joint assessment, whether it is the husband or wife who is earning, or else ignoring the spouse's income altogether. The Committee recommended. in paragraph 255: that the income of the spouse should be ignored, except in considering whether any special grant is to be given by the award-making body for the spouse's maintenance. The Government did not carry out that recommendation because the lower award made to certain married women students presumably takes account of the earnings of a husband in employment.

Next, I come to the question of the age of majority. It seems to me to be all the more unrealistic that, having passed legislation to lower the voting age to 18 and to enable people to obtain a mortgage for a house and to take on hire-purchase commitments at that age, we then say that because a person, as a student at a teachers' training college, decides to marry at the age of 20 and not at the age of 21, there should be a continuing parental financial responsibility for that person. In short, in this case we are saying, in terms of details of the award of £275 per annum, that we expect the parents to contribute about £230 per annum to cover Mrs. Basnett's bed and board in her husband's household.

Moreover, it is a well-known principle in our social services that no one should receive a double benefit. A person who is unemployed and sick receives either unemployment benefit or sick benefit, but not both. Why then, in education, should we have this curious anomaly of a double deduction? Particularly as we are to raise the school-leaving age to 16 in 1972 —a long-overdue reform—it seems to me that we should be giving students every encouragement to enter teacher-training colleges and remain in them. In fact, this attitude towards grant is a major discouragement to certain married women students to undertake a course at a teacher-training college. It seems that not only do we insist on paying our teachers atrociously when they are qualified, but we intend to treat those who are studying to qualify just as badly.

I strongly urge my hon. Friend to take the opportunity of this debate to introduce a change in the regulations, to dispense with this long-standing anomaly and to enable women to marry below the age of 21—and to live in a separate household—without expecting their parents to make a contribution towards their studies.

4.15 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Gerry Fowler)

From my knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens), I would expect him, as he has done, to pursue the case of his constituent to the ultimate limit. I have nothing but praise for his efforts. However, we are in some danger of becoming confused between the general issue to which my hon. Friend devoted most of his speech and the specific issue of Mrs. Basnett.

As I understand it, no one, least of all my hon. Friend, suggests that the Inner London Education Authority has not observed the rules in calculating Mrs. Basnett's grant. Therefore, we are debating, not the case of Mrs. Basnett, despite the words which stand on the Order Paper, but the much more general question whether the regulations for the payment of awards are as good as they might be.

Since there may be some misunderstanding about the nature of arrangements made by local education authorities for grants to students training as teachers, perhaps I can say a few words about the legal position. The power to pay these grants is conferred on local education authorities by Section 2(3) of the Education Act, 1962. But the Act goes on to say: … the power … shall not be exercisable … except in accordance with such arrangements as may from time to time be submitted by the authority to the Secretary of State and approved by him". The arrangements are made by the authority and approved by the Secretary of State.

I must make it clear that in paying these grants a local education authority does not act as the agent of my Department in any sense. On the other hand, I do not suggest for a moment that local education authorities have not received guidance about what will receive the approval of the Secretary of State. This is the content of Circular 21/68, to which my hon. Friend rightly referred. It is also true that the Secretary of State would not approve a local education authority's grant arrangements for student teachers which differ from those made by other local education authorities or, in material respects, from the grants made by authorities to students following first degree or comparable courses, for the simple reason that there is general agreement that substantial uniformity of treatment is desirable for courses of comparable length and, broadly, comparable standard. Within this framework certain matters are left for local decision, but they do not include the points about which my hon. Friend spoke today.

This is the general position, and I take it that my hon. Friend agrees with what we are debating is the rectitude or otherwise of the general arrangements and not specifically the case of Mrs. Basnett. Mrs. Basnett believes that it is unjust, and so does my hon. Friend, that her grant as a married woman should be assessed on her parents' income and that the maximum rate to which she is entitled should take account of the fact that she lives, during term time, with her husband in their home. The question of parental income and where Mrs. Basnett lives are, essentially, two separate issues.

As my hon. Friend rightly said, the present system of grants to students derives largely from the recommendations of the Anderson Committee, which reported in 1960. That committee was divided on the question whether parental contributions to grants should be abolished. My hon. Friend has said that I will, no doubt, say that to abolish the parental contribution would be expensive, and that is true.

Mr. Dickens

I was talking about abolishing the parental contribution for women under the age of 21 who marry and who are at a centre of higher education, not generally.

Mr. Fowler

I take the point, but I will come to priorities rather later.

If I may deal with the general question, what would happen if all parental contributions were abolished? Taking into account all the factors that my hon. Friend rightly mentioned, we estimate that the cost in the current academic year would be between £35 and £40 million. This figure would, of course, rise, assuming that the numbers of people in higher education continue to rise.

The Anderson Committee made recommendations about conditions which should be observed if the system were retained. In particular—my hon. Friend quoted the passage—the committee saw no reason for not expecting a contribution simply because a student was married. The cases in which the committee recommended that the contribution should be waived were limited to two: first, students aged 25 or over before the first year of the course; and, secondly, students who had supported themselves from earnings for three years before the first year of the course. I stress that the Anderson Committee's recommended exceptions were two. Those recommendations were accepted and were incorporated in Circular 21/68 and the approved grant arrangements.

Later, however, a third category of exception was added: that is, women students who were married and had attained the age of 21 before the start of their course. My hon. Friend talked about sex bias. There is, indeed, a sex bias in the regulations, but it is a bias in favour of the female sex, because in this respect the regulations were amended in such a way as to make the position of the married woman preferable to that of the married man. The specific exception here, I repeat, is for women students who are married and have attained the age of 21 before the start of their course. The same exception does not apply to men students.

Mrs. Basnett was under the age of 21 when she began her course of teacher training. She had not been self-supporting for the required period. I do not think, therefore, that there is any controversy about whether the I.L.E.A. was right to assess her grant on the basis of her parents' income.

The second issue of concern to Mrs. Basnett is the gross amount of grant from which a contribution has been subtracted. Let me make it clear that there is no provision in the grant arrangements for the personal grant of a married student to be assessed on the basis of his or her partner's income. My hon. Friend seemed to suggest at one point that the husband's income was taken into account in assessing the grant. It is, in fact, entirely ignored.

For a married woman living with her husband in their home, the normal rate of grant is fixed at £275 for a 30-week academic year. This is increased to £360, or £395 in London, if the husband himself is a student or is incapacitated and dependent upon his wife. No account is taken of the husband's income.

Mr. Dickens

Is it not clear from the regulations that because a lower level is payable to married women, account is therefore, by implication, taken of her husband's earnings?

Mr. Fowler

No. My hon. Friend is confusing two things. He is confusing whether account is taken of the fact that the woman student is married and whether account is taken of her husband's income. If account were taken of her husband's income, it would be clear enough that just as account is taken of parental income, there would be a sliding scale which took account of the level of income of the student's husband.

My hon. Friend suggested that the situation was that Mrs. Basnett's bed and board in her husband's home had to be provided in part by her parents. That is a somewhat strange way to put the case. The position is that in the first year of her course Mrs. Basnett's husband was a student and her grant was related to the highest figure I have quoted. He completed his course in June, 1969, and the authority, rightly in terms of the regulations, have based her grant for the current academic year on the lower figure of £275. But what happened to Mr. Basnett after he completed his course? He started work. I understand that, unfortunately, he has had to go into hospital after receiving an injury at work.

I am very sorry about this; it is unfortunate. But I do not think that he has suffered financially and there is no evidence that Mrs. Basnett's husband is dependent on her. I know of no evidence and my hon. Friend has not presented any which would justify a different view. In essence, we have a situation in which Mrs. Basnett's husband is working.

Is it not normal that when married couples are living together if the wife is not working she is dependent entirely upon her husband? But in the case of a woman student she receives a grant over and above that which my hon. Friend himself described as being for bed and board in her husband's home. That is to say, the position of the woman student whose husband is working is arguably better than that of the woman who is married but not working. I do not follow the argument that, merely because a woman married to a man at work is a student, she is thereby entitled to a very much higher level of support than she receives at the moment.

Mr. Dickens

But the male student gets precisely that. The male student in the same circumstances as Mrs. Basnett receives a much higher level of award than an earning wife.

Mr. Fowler

I have already explained that the regulations are biased in favour of married women who have attained the age of 21 before starting their course. These women, in general, are in a favourable position as compared to male students. My hon. Friend has presented a somewhat one-sided case.

The I.L.E.A. has assessed Mrs. Basnett's grant in accordance with the arrangements approved by the Secretary of State which apply equally to other students in her circumstances. A married woman student, assisted by a maintenance grant and living in a home provided and maintained by a husband who is earning, is by no means in an unfavourable position. If funds were available at present to increase students' grants I doubt whether a proposition to give priority to this particular category of students would enlist general sympathy. There are many more deserving cases than those based on the argument that a parental contribution should be waived for no other reason than that a young man or young woman has decided to get married before completing studies.

For example, the claims of students in their mid-20s who are in the final years of very long undergraduate courses and are still treated as dependent upon their parents, or those of men students over 21 but under 25 and who married before starting their course. Unlike women, these students are still regarded as dependent on their parents unless they can show that they have kept themselves from their own earnings for three years.

My hon. Friend mentioned one or two other matters to which I should refer. He suggested that the change in the age of majority should lead to a change in the regulations. Perhaps in the course of time it may, I do not know. I am not a prophet. All I can say is that in present financial circumstances I see no argument for this, nor did the Anderson Committee take account of it when it reported. Perhaps my hon. Friend will know that the base line they chose in respect of parental contributions was the age of 25 and not 21, which was the age of majority.

Finally, my hon. Friend referred to the problem of parents who do not contribute as they might to their children's higher education. I share his view entirely and share his experience. I have been horrified repeatedly in discovering that fellow students or pupils, when I was lecturing in university, were on much reduced grants because of their parents' income. Yet although their parents must have been well off if their grants had been reduced by that amount, the parents made no contribution, or only a tiny one, to the maintenance of their children in higher education.

I regard this as a dereliction of parental duty, and I hope that, together, my hon. Friend and I can send out a message from the House today that parents should in future look to their own responsibilities in making up the deficiencies in their children's grants when their children are receiving higher education.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Four o'clock.]