§ 17. Mr. George Gardinerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will revise the system under which grants for married mature students are assessed in order to eliminate the spouse's contribution.
§ 18. Mr. Gouldasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will review the rule that the grants of married postgraduate students are subject to means-tested contributions from their spouses.
§ 23. Miss Fookesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will review the new regulations governing grants to married women students.
§ Mr. PrenticeI have no present plans to alter the basis on which grants to married students are assessed, but I have undertaken to review the working of the scheme after it has been in operation for a year.
§ Mr. GardinerI declare a family interest in the matter I am raising. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the system he introduced earlier this year is, perhaps unintentionally, riddled with injustice, that many married women in particular are having to give up degree and teacher training courses because of the way the means test is now applied on spouses' incomes and that his practice runs directly counter to that announced by the Home Secretary when he outlined his intention to increase the equality of opportunity for women?
§ Mr. PrenticeThe hon. Gentleman is wrong on every point. The new system of grants, announced in the summer, is fairer. It is one by which we have been able to correct a number of anomalies, including improving the grants for married 1094 women students generally by over 60 per cent., at a time when the general grants rose by about 25 per cent. In order to finance that, we had to introduce the spouse's contribution element, which is partly helping to offset the cost.
The hon. Gentleman says that the system runs counter to the proposed legislation on the equality of the sexes. He is wrong. This is a spouse's contribution. It is a contribution from a wife at work if the husband is a student as well as the other way round. There is no contribution at all unless the income is about £2,000 a year, and the contribution does not begin to offset the increase in grant unless the income is over £3,000. It is a fairer system and the facts completely contradict what the hon. Gentleman has said.
§ Mr. GouldIs my right hon. Friend happy with a means test which allows school fees and interest payments to be set against income but takes no account of rent and fares paid to go to work?
§ Mr. PrenticeFor the foreseeable future we have to keep parental and spouses' contributions. I would like to speak to my hon. Friend in more detail about the way the rules work and what is or is not taken into account. The system is to he reviewed every year instead of every three years, and we shall look at all these matters in the next review.
§ Miss FookesIs the right hon. Gentleman happy with a system in which some husbands are refusing to sign the necessary form and some married women are thereby unable to continue with their studies?
§ Mr. PrenticeI am not happy if a married couple make a decision that, because of this report, a married woman should withdraw from training or study of any kind. Even from the point of view of self-interest, they should consider the improvement in the family income which will accrue after the wife has completed her training and is working as a teacher.