HC Deb 02 November 1993 vol 231 cc137-8
3. Mr. Hain

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to provide special funding next year for discretionary student awards.

Mr. Boswell

That is a matter for local education authorities. They are already free to devote to discretionary awards whatever portion of their total resources they consider appropriate to local needs and circumstances.

Mr. Hain

Surely the Minister is insulting the House with that reply. He knows that every local education authority that wishes to fund students who need discretionary grants is prevented from doing so by the cuts in budgets which have been imposed by central Government. Is he aware that he is consigning many thousands of students, from those of medicine to those of music, who depend or would depend on a discretionary student grant, to an impossible position in which they cannot continue their further and higher education? Why does not he grasp that nettle? Why has he not published the study of the subject by the Gulbenkian and Sir John Cass foundations, which was promised by the Prime Minister in the summer?

Mr. Boswell

We increased education spending by about 2.6 per cent. last year, and that is available for local authorities to spend on what they regard as their priorities. If they choose to take funds away and spend them in some other sector, that is a matter for them. The hon. Gentleman would be the first to complain if we took away that discretion from them.

As for the point that the hon. Gentleman made about discretionary awards, we have not published the Gulbenkian and Sir John Cass foundations' study because it is not ours to publish. The document is being prepared by the National Foundation for Educational Research. I shall read it—as will the hon. Gentleman, I am sure—with great interest when the detailed findings are available. I have already told the House, from the early part of that study before the detailed work was done, that there was evidence of a continuation of spending and the number of awards made, both of which are slightly higher than they were three years ago.

Mr. Garnier

My hon. Friend must be aware that in my constituency there are premises of Leicester university and of De Montfort university. Is he aware that students at those universities find it difficult to manage on their grants because the socialist council in the city of Leicester is imposing hideous regulations on private landlords, pricing private residential accommodation out of the reach of students? Will he, with the co-operation of the Department of the Environment, ensure that unnecessary regulations affecting student housing are not implemented?

Mr. Boswell

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. I am very much in the business, from this Dispatch Box, of promoting academic deregulation wherever possible and preventing unnecessary and expensive regulations either in the capital programmes of universities and colleges or, indeed, in student accommodation. Although it is not a direct responsibility of the Department, and it has relevance to my colleagues in the Department of the Environment, I have noted what my hon. Friend said and I will take forward his specific suggestion.

Mr. Tony Lloyd

Whether the Minister likes it or not, the discretionary grants provision is now in a state of crisis. He promised the results of the Gulbenkian study before the summer and said that they were imminent, but we still await the results of that report. Even if he does not know, we know already that four local education authorities have cut discretionary grants altogether, another 10 have cut grants down to fees only and the majority have cut back on provision of discretionary grants. Is the Minister aware, as he ought to be, that the people who depend on discretionary grants are those who would not get into education without the grants? Will the tell the House here and now what steps he is taking to ensure that next year those grants will be available for the people who need them?

Mr. Boswell

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is such a slow learner. I have already explained to the House why I cannot publish the survey, which is not in my hands to publish. We are not sitting on it.

The hon. Gentleman made a series of assertions in a paper that he submitted to the Department in July, including, at that time, the assertion that three local authorities had decided to make no discretionary awards. I have not, as far as I am aware, been given the names of those authorities. He has now increased the number to four. As I told him at the time, if he is prepared to name them, my Department will investigate because not to make any payments is an improper use of the discretionary procedure.

Mr. Batiste

Is not the sad reality that too many Labour local authorities, such as mine in Leeds, simply do not attach sufficient importance to education to make a fair share of resources available for discretionary grants?

Mr. Boswell

My hon. Friend is exactly on the point. It is no good giving discretion to local authorities if they then turn round and dislike the discretion that they have been given because they have put it into directions which are their own priorities and not the priorities of students.

I noted the suggestion of the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd). Of course, in certain areas less is paid. We shall know more when the detailed survey is completed. I am as anxious as he is that it should be completed. It is no excuse for a local authority to say that it has not been given the money—it has.