§ Mr. Roweasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what arrangements for meeting students' travel expenses will apply from 1984–85; what the main rates of grant for that year will be; and if he will make a statement.
§ Sir Keith JosephFollowing consultations with the local authority associations, the CVCP and the NUS, I have decided to institute new arrangements for meeting students' travel costs from 1984–85.
Under the present arrangements, students are reimbursed on the basis of separate individual claims for their actual expenditure on travel each year where that amounts to more than £50. This system is complicated and time-consuming to administer and effectively represents an open-ended commitment to public expenditure. The Government have been considering for some time how it might be simplified.
544Wpersonal allowances and thresholds. Considering changes to these items only, the changes in income tax yields and the average changes per tax unit are given in the table.
The figures are in terms of 1984–85 income levels, and compare the income tax payable under the proposed 1984–85 income tax regime with that which would be payable if the 1978–79 allowances and thresholds (with and without indexation) and rates were in force. I regret that it would not be possible to disaggregate the effects of each budget separately since 1979 without disproportionate cost.
From 1984–85 it is my intention that students should no longer generally be able to make individual claims for travel expenses. Instead they will receive a flat-rate sum as part of their grant to cover travel costs: students studying from home, who may have unavoidable high daily travelling costs, will receive £160 for this purpose, and those studying away from home will receive £100. The extra weeks allowance will be increased pro rata by £5.35 and £3.35 per week for home and away students respectively. Travel costs incurred in respect of attendance overseas or away from the main place of study will, however, continue to be dealt with on a reimbursement basis, and provision will also be made for disabled students to be reimbursed any travel costs in excess of the amount provided in the grant that they incur in respect of attendance on their course as a result of their disability.
As far as new students are concerned, it will be for them to decide how best to arrange their affairs in the light of the total resources available to them. But those consulted have expressed a real and well-founded concern about the position of some students already on courses who have both exceptionally high travelling costs and little real 545W possibility of changing their circumstances in mid-course so as to reduce those costs. I am sympathetic to these concerns. I intend, therefore, to make provision for existing students whose unavoidable travel expenses are more than £150 above what they will receive through the grant to claim reimbursement of the excess. This should alleviate the worst of the difficulties which introduction of the new arrangements would otherwise have created for existing students.
I announced on 17 November last year at column 535 that the main rates of grant would be increased by 4 per cent. in the autumn of 1984. Taking account of the new flat-rate provision for travel, the main rates of grant for 1984–85 will be:
- London £2,100
- Elsewhere £1,775
- Home £1,435
The extra weeks allowance, paid to students studying for longer than normal term-time, will be increased by 4 per cent. in line with the main rates of grant, by further amounts pro rata to the new flat rate provision for travel in the main rates, and by an additional £2.80 in response to the strong case made by clinical, medical and dental students in particular for a real increase in this allowance in respect of expenditure on clothing, laundry and books. The new rates will be:
- London £48.60 per week
- Elsewhere £37.80 per week
- Home £26.50 per week