HC Deb 12 June 1990 vol 174 cc129-30
10. Mr. McFall

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the administration of the student loans scheme.

Mr. Jackson

I visited the Student Loans Company yesterday. It is making excellent progress. The company is well on course and the decision to locate in Scotland has been fully vindicated. I am confident that the company will offer an efficient service to students and value for money to the taxpayer.

Mr. McFall

Why does the application form require two referees? Is it to vet student suitability or is it, as the chief executive of the Student Loans Company said at Strathclyde university recently, to help the company to keep contact throughout the period of the loan? If it is the latter, how will this work in practice?

Mr. Jackson

It is quite normal to seek referees in these cases, and it is not a qualification for having a loan. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not implying that the Student Loans Company should not make every effort to recoup for the taxpayer money lent to students to help to maintain them while they are studying.

Mr. Patrick Thompson

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the recently announced increase in the access funds to help students who may have particular difficulties. Can he say more about the administration of the funds and the present position?

Mr. Jackson

We hope that the funding councils will shortly be announcing the sum to be allocated to the institutions as access funds. The distribution of such funds by the institutions will be a matter for them to carry out at their own discretion. We believe that this will be a useful supplement to the resources that they have to assist their students.

Mr. Andrew Smith

Do not we face a serious accommodation crisis in polytechnics and universities as a consequence of this scheme, and in particular as a result of the Government's failure to announce the student loans regulations, details of the withdrawal of benefit or how the access funds are to operate, as the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson) asked? As students and the institutions will pay the price for the Government's incompetence in introducing this ill-judged scheme, does the Minister owe it to them and to us to tell us what he intends to do about it?

Mr. Jackson

The regulations will be published shortly. I have already answered the question about access funds. I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman said.