Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2026 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for the scrutiny of this instrument they have provided. I believe that they were satisfied with it. The draft regulations were laid in Parliament on 18 May 2026. These regulations are the first of three pieces of secondary legislation needed to implement the lifelong learning entitlement—LLE. They establish a new system of tuition fee limits for higher education courses and modules that begin on or after 1 January 2027.

The LLE is one of the most significant reforms to student finance in a generation. For the first time, it creates a single flexible funding system for study at levels 4 to 6, spanning both further and higher education—one that supports people to learn, upskill and retrain across their working lives. The LLE was a central element within the Government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, supporting the growth and skills missions as well as the industrial strategy.

The case for the LLE is clear. Over a third of job vacancies are unfilled because of skills shortages and at least 80% of the workforce of 2030 are already in work today, yet our current system was designed largely with younger, full-time learners in mind. It does not offer the flexibility for someone who is older, who wants to study part-time, take a short course or module, or retrain mid-career. The principle of a single lifelong learning entitlement was a central recommendation of Sir Philip Augar’s 2019 review. Parliament then established the framework for this through the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 and the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Act 2023. These regulations now continue the serious work of implementation.

The LLE will broaden access to high-quality, flexible education and training. It will support learner mobility and help our colleges, universities and other providers respond more effectively to the skills needs of learners, employers and the wider economy. In doing this, it will support the Prime Minister’s ambition for two-thirds of young people to access higher-level learning by the age of 25 and help to increase participation in high-quality technical education. This Government are committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity and driving economic growth, and the LLE is a central part of that mission. These regulations set out the details of the LLE tuition fee limit system. A tuition fee limit is the maximum amount that a provider in England can charge per year if they are subject to a fee cap. Currently this limit is up to £9,790 for a standard full-time course in 2026-27.

At present, fee limits are set as a fixed cash amount for each academic year, regardless of how much learning that year contains. That works for a traditional three-year degree but it cannot price a single module or a short course effectively. These regulations replace this with a credit-based approach. Credits are units widely used to signify the amount of learning a student would ordinarily be expected to undertake to complete a particular course or part of a course. Across the further and higher education sectors, definitions are consistent. One credit equals about 10 hours of student learning, so to give a straightforward example for a typical higher education course, the standard higher fee limit amount for the academic year 2026-27 is £9,790 and a standard full-time year contains 120 credits. The LLE per-credit fee limit as described by these regulations represents that £9,790 divided by 120. The result is therefore a tuition fee limit of close to £82 per credit, or £81.58 to be precise. These regulations mean that tuition fee limits can be apportioned in line with the credit size of any given course.

The new system established by these regulations does not change the overall tuition fee limit, as debated by the House earlier this year. The vast majority of students will see no change in the fees they are charged. What changes is the application of the tuition fee limits that have been set. For the first time, fee limits will apply fairly to short periods of study, as well as to traditional longer courses; that is because they will be based on the amount of learning in a course or module. Students will therefore know that their tuition fees reflect the volume of learning they are undertaking. The regulations provide protection for students and taxpayers. There are limits on the credits for which a provider can charge: 360 credits for a typical three-year degree and 180 credits within any one year.

Subject to Parliament’s approval of these regulations, it is my intention to make and lay two further instruments, which are necessary to establish the LLE. The two instruments, on student support and on repayments, have already been published in draft so that the House has full sight of the suite of legislation proposed and the sector can make appropriate preparations for the introduction of the LLE system. These two instruments will both be subject to the negative procedure. Given their dependency on the regulations before us today, they will be made only if both Houses approve these regulations.

These regulations represent a significant step in fulfilling this Government’s commitment to deliver the lifelong learning entitlement. They establish the fee limit system needed to support a more flexible approach to student finance—one that works better for young people and adults alike. By doing so, they will help learners study in a way that fits their lives, help providers respond to changing skills needs and support people across the country to access the education and training they need to succeed. I beg to move.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome these regulations and, obviously, support the objective of the lifelong learning entitlement. As the Minister said, it originated in the Augar review a few years ago, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, played an important part. I am glad that this Government are continuing the work initiated by previous Governments in this respect.

These regulations are really important because they put in place the funding architecture for the LLE, without which it cannot become a reality. However, the real test will be whether, in reality, the architecture translates into substantially greater participation in lifelong learning, which has always been one of the missing pieces of our educational landscape in England. That will become all the more important in the world we are moving into—that of artificial intelligence. As Ministers and others have noted, we will need to enable the retraining of people many times over the course of their working lives. So I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the LLE is intended to operate alongside employer-funded retraining through the growth and skills levy.

It is important that we have clarity on the boundaries between these two important funding schemes, and how they relate to one another, so that we eliminate any policy confusion that might inadvertently depress demand for lifelong learning, which, as I said, is already pretty low. If a worker needs to retrain because AI has transformed their role, how should they go about it? How will they know whether the expectation from government is that their employer will fund that training or whether they should fund it themselves through loans via the lifelong learning entitlement? I would really welcome some thoughts from the Minister on those questions.

I also have broader questions about the future of this policy. These regulations are a great start and it is better that we are starting down this journey towards more modular study where possible, but I think the Minister has admitted in the past that this is not the end point or final destination. I would like to probe a little further where she sees this policy area going. In particular, when will the LLE be extended to master’s level study—level 7—given the increasing demand for postgraduate-level reskilling in areas such as AI, digital technologies and advanced professional practice? Many adults who need to retrain in the coming decade will already hold a bachelor’s degree, given current levels of tertiary enrolment, and will need to acquire higher-level skills rather than simply further study at undergraduate level or sub-degree level, which is the current area of focus of the LLE.

Secondly, what is the Government’s thinking on eligibility for funding for courses not drawn from existing qualifications? The stipulations in the policy are very clear at the moment: funding will be made available only for modules that are drawn from existing qualifications. I have said on a few occasions that this risks us stifling innovation in what is on offer, meaning that we, in effect, provide access only to more of the same but in smaller pieces. I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts on how we can meet demand from employers for shorter, more agile programmes that respond to rapidly changing labour market needs but do not necessarily fit within traditional qualification structures. If lifelong learning is genuinely to become a normal feature of working life, it seems likely that the funding system will ultimately need to accommodate that greater flexibility.

In her remarks, the Minister referred to two further regulations that are going to be laid, one of which is on student support. As she thinks about the future direction of this policy area, could she say whether the Government might soften their stance on student support for online, distance-learning qualifications? It stands to reason—and this is the whole intent of the Government’s policy—that the smaller the unit of study, the more likely it is to be studied at distance and online, given that students will not want to incur the frictional costs of upping sticks and moving to study at another institution in person. None the less, they will still need to incur maintenance costs, which the current regulations do not provide for. As we move into a more modular landscape, it is likely that we will need to rethink that, so I would like to understand the Government’s intentions in that respect.

Finally, what does success look like in this policy area? How are we measuring it? What level of adult participation do the Government want this entitlement to achieve over the next three to five years in shifting the market share away from this category-killing three-year bachelor’s degree towards other more flexible forms of study? Where does the Minister want us to end up in changing the way higher education is consumed and delivered over a horizon of three to five years and by what measures will the Government judge whether further reform is needed? All those points are not to detract from the importance of these regulations: they are a really important beginning. I wish the Minister every success in getting them through Parliament.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

I also welcome these regulations. They seem to have taken a while, and it is really good to see them. As the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, pointed out, this policy was the number one recommendation of the Augar review, of which I was fortunate enough to be a member. The cross-party support for that has been really gratifying, because we all recognise the importance both of continuing education and training and of greater flexibility.

I thought it might be worth putting on the record some of the things that we were most concerned about, because they lead into the question of how we know whether it is working or whether anything else needs doing. First, we were not particularly looking forward to modular study as such; it was much more about creating a comprehensive change in the student funding system that would build in far greater flexibility.

The thing that we were most concerned about was the rigidity of the equivalent level qualification regulations, which had been brought in by previous Governments. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, will probably be able to elaborate. The idea was that you should have people going up and up in levels all the time. We felt that that was deeply misconceived and that one of the things you had to do—for everybody, not just for a few additional people—was to make it clear that what was important was what you were learning, not the level at which that took place.

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When it comes to the point about expanding student support for distance learning, which I know the noble Lord has made previously, let me be clear: there is an expansion of maintenance support under the provisions that we are making for the LLE, but it remains targeted at courses that require in-person attendance, where a learner’s ability to earn alongside their study is reduced. That is the aim of maintenance support, is it not? For that reason, distance learning courses remain out of scope for maintenance loans at the moment. However, as I say, the LLE actually expands maintenance overall because, for the first time, it extends to part-time and technical study below degree level that requires in-person attendance. Most of that does not qualify for maintenance at the moment.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

I thank the Minister very much for her comments in response to my remarks. I make just two observations. In relation to the Minister’s point on the master’s loan, it is, I think, still the case that the master’s loan is not available in a modular, flexible form; it is still for a year’s worth of funding. So the flexible goals of the regulations will not apply at level 7, even through the master’s loan.

On the Minister’s point about maintenance funding, I think that it is probably a mistake to think that, just because someone is studying online or at distance, they do not need support. Even if they are not incurring the same living costs as someone who has physically moved to study a higher education course, they are none the less incurring the opportunity cost of not earning. That is the principal loss of income to them, which the maintenance loan is traditionally supposed to meet.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is of course the case that, even for distance learning, if you had a disability, for example, you would have access to the disabled students’ allowance. However, with limited resource, we have to make decisions about where we want to focus maintenance support. I do not think that it is inappropriate to focus it on those who find it much more difficult to earn alongside their learning. I understand the point that the noble Lord is making—anybody who has done an OU course understands precisely how much time it takes to do that—but the Government have focused in the way that I have described.

The next set of issues, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, relate to what we see as success, where we see the future of this measure and how radical we think it should be. It is important to say that this is not a short-term fix; it is a bold long-term investment to support the creation of a student finance system that is fit for the challenges of the future. We have made a deliberate decision to phase in the delivery of the LLE, placing quality and learner outcomes ahead of an immediate large-scale rollout, but we want to see education providers using the LLE to innovate, driving deeper collaboration between further and higher education institutions and supporting smoother learner transitions across levels.

The student finance system must also meet labour market needs, which is why we are calling on employers to be active partners. We want employers to see the LLE as an essential part of their workforce strategies, helping them to attract new talent, develop skills and retain employees. We expect more FE and HE providers to work with employers and representative bodies to co-design flexible provision, helping create coherent learner pathways into the workforce.

I reiterate, as others in this Committee have, my thanks to and respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. She has a long record in this area and is, in fact, one of only two people in this Room who turned up to my briefing session on the LLE.