Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, to guarantee funding for student exchanges for the 2020/21 academic year to bring it in line with the funding that would have been provided by the Erasmus+ scheme.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government places great value upon international exchange and collaboration in education and training. This will continue to be the case after we leave the EU and establish new relationships with academic institutions across Europe and the rest of the world.
If it is in the UK’s interests, we will seek to participate in specific EU programmes as a third country. While the regulations for future EU programmes are still in the process of being developed, the draft Political Declaration envisages the possibility of UK participation in EU programmes like Erasmus+ and the negotiation of general terms of participation. Officials are preparing for all eventualities and are considering a wide range of options with regard to the future of international exchange. These include potential domestic alternatives to the Erasmus+ programme for the 2020/21 academic year and beyond, should we need them.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when ministers last met representatives of the Office for Students to discuss the protection of students from sexual harassment, bullying and threats of violence at universities.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
There is no place in our society, including within higher education, for hatred or any form of harassment, discrimination or racism.
Higher education providers have clear responsibilities, including under the Equality Act (2010). They should have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law and to protect against violence, bullying, discrimination and harassment.
The government has tasked the Office for Students (OfS) to tackle these important issues at a sector level and to make campuses places of tolerance for all students. The OfS was set up to champion students and it is right that they work closely with higher education providers on these issues.
The OfS and its predecessor body allocated £4.7 million for a safeguarding scheme to address harassment and hate crime in higher education, including 63 projects with a specific focus on sexual violence and misconduct.
The OfS has commissioned an external evaluation of this scheme and, in June this year, published its ’Catalyst for change’ report, attached, which includes recommendations for providers on how they can address the issue of hate crime, sexual violence and online harassment alongside a range of resources on their website. The OfS has held several conferences on harassment issues to support providers and share good practice. It will hold a series of roundtables in 2019-20 to examine key issues relating to student welfare and safeguarding, including reporting, monitoring and evaluation of approaches.
Ministers and officials in the department regularly meet the OfS, stakeholders and representative bodies about a range of student experience issues, including student safeguarding. This includes specific quarterly meetings with the OfS to discuss how to tackle harassment and hate crime within the sector.
The government will continue to work closely with the OfS to prioritise the tackling of all forms of harassment and hate crime in higher education.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what role they intend for the Office for Students to have in the provision of support to universities that have experienced difficulties in implementing policies to protect students from sexual harassment, bullying and threats of violence.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
There is no place in our society, including within higher education, for hatred or any form of harassment, discrimination or racism.
Higher education providers have clear responsibilities, including under the Equality Act (2010). They should have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law and to protect against violence, bullying, discrimination and harassment.
The government has tasked the Office for Students (OfS) to tackle these important issues at a sector level and to make campuses places of tolerance for all students. The OfS was set up to champion students and it is right that they work closely with higher education providers on these issues.
The OfS and its predecessor body allocated £4.7 million for a safeguarding scheme to address harassment and hate crime in higher education, including 63 projects with a specific focus on sexual violence and misconduct.
The OfS has commissioned an external evaluation of this scheme and, in June this year, published its ’Catalyst for change’ report, attached, which includes recommendations for providers on how they can address the issue of hate crime, sexual violence and online harassment alongside a range of resources on their website. The OfS has held several conferences on harassment issues to support providers and share good practice. It will hold a series of roundtables in 2019-20 to examine key issues relating to student welfare and safeguarding, including reporting, monitoring and evaluation of approaches.
Ministers and officials in the department regularly meet the OfS, stakeholders and representative bodies about a range of student experience issues, including student safeguarding. This includes specific quarterly meetings with the OfS to discuss how to tackle harassment and hate crime within the sector.
The government will continue to work closely with the OfS to prioritise the tackling of all forms of harassment and hate crime in higher education.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of children of working parents who qualify for free school meals.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The information requested is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Free school meals are aimed at families who are out of work, and those in work with low earnings. For further information on the qualifying criteria, I refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave on 18 June 2019 to Question HL15975, as attached.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many overseas students they estimate will attend UK universities between 2019–20 and 2024–25.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Almost 460,000 international students chose to study at a UK higher education institution (HEI) in 2017/18. We have made no estimate of the number of overseas students that will attend UK HEIs between 2019-20 and 2024-25, or their contribution to the UK economy.
In the International Education Strategy, published in March 2019, the government set out its ambition to both increase the value of education exports to £35 billion per year and to increase the total number of international students hosted by UK universities to 600,000 by 2030, an increase of over 30%.
We fully recognise the important contribution that international students make to the UK’s higher education sector, both economically and culturally. They bring greater diversity to university and college campuses, an international dimension to the experience of all students, stimulate demand for courses, and add to the UK’s impressive research capacity. They are also an important source of income for our education sector. International students at UK HEIs contributed an estimated £11.9 billion to the UK economy in 2016 through tuition fees and living expenditure.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the amount that will be contributed to the UK economy by students from overseas between 2019–20 and 2024–25.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Almost 460,000 international students chose to study at a UK higher education institution (HEI) in 2017/18. We have made no estimate of the number of overseas students that will attend UK HEIs between 2019-20 and 2024-25, or their contribution to the UK economy.
In the International Education Strategy, published in March 2019, the government set out its ambition to both increase the value of education exports to £35 billion per year and to increase the total number of international students hosted by UK universities to 600,000 by 2030, an increase of over 30%.
We fully recognise the important contribution that international students make to the UK’s higher education sector, both economically and culturally. They bring greater diversity to university and college campuses, an international dimension to the experience of all students, stimulate demand for courses, and add to the UK’s impressive research capacity. They are also an important source of income for our education sector. International students at UK HEIs contributed an estimated £11.9 billion to the UK economy in 2016 through tuition fees and living expenditure.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of withdrawing financial support for foundation years attached to degree courses on access to higher education for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Access and successful participation remain a priority for this government and is enshrined in the Higher Education and Research Act (2017). Everyone with the ability to succeed in higher education should have the opportunity, regardless of their background or where they grew up.
The independent panel’s report to the government, published on 30 May, forms an important step in the review of Post-18 Education and Funding. The government will consider the panel’s recommendations carefully and will conclude the review at the Spending Review. The government has not yet taken decisions with regards to the recommendations put forward.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of a reduction in tuition fees in England to £7,500 per year on the lifetime student loan repayments of graduates.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The independent panel’s report to the government is an important step in the review of Post-18 Education and Funding. The government will carefully consider the panel’s recommendations and will conclude the review at the Spending Review. The government has not yet taken decisions regarding the recommendations put forward.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many students receiving free school meals (1) are children of working parents, and (2) have also received food parcels from a food bank in the previous 12 months.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The information requested is not held centrally.
To be eligible to receive free school meals (FSM), a pupil or their parent must be in receipt of any one of the following listed benefits and must make a claim to the school for FSM:
Income Support
Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act (1999)
The guaranteed element of Pension Credit
Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
Working Tax Credit run-on: paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
Universal Credit: if you apply on or after 1 April 2018 your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get).
We do not collect or hold data on the benefit which has qualified a pupil for FSM, therefore we are unable to identify those in receipt that may be in working households. We also do not collect any data on the number of pupils who may have received a food parcel from a food bank.
The government believes there is a need for more robust statistics in order to better understand the trend in food insecurity. Building a better understanding of household food needs will help ensure we’re targeting support to those who need it most. This is why we have worked with food insecurity experts, the Office for National Statistics, and the Scottish Government to introduce a new set of food security questions in the Family Resources Survey from April 2019.
This means that from spring 2021, we will be able to monitor the prevalence and severity of household food insecurity at a national level, and for specific groups to better understand the drivers of food insecurity and identify which groups are most at risk.
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of changes to the criteria for free school meals eligibility in 2018; and how many students now receive free school meals compared to the number who received them before these changes took place.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
I refer the noble Lord to the answers I gave on 6 February 2019 to Question HL13093 and Question HL13094. I will also refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave on 20 February 2019 to Question HL13492.
Under the new eligibility criteria that we introduced in April 2018, we estimate that more pupils will benefit from free school meals (FSM) by 2022, compared with the previous criteria. In addition, generous transitional protections were put in place to ensure no child will lose their eligibility for FSM during the change to the new criteria.
Under the benefits-based criteria, to be eligible to receive FSM, a pupil or their parent must be in receipt of any one of the qualifying benefits and must make a claim to the school for FSM. The qualifying criteria includes benefits for both out of work and low-earning families. The full eligibility criteria is attached and also available here: https://www.gov.uk/apply-free-school-meals.