Draft Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026

Jack Rankin Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 General Committees

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the Minister for introducing the debate. His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition will support the regulations.

Giving people the chance to access education and training flexibly throughout their working lives supports social mobility and personal aspiration, and helps employers to secure the skills that they need. That is why we Conservatives are proud that the previous Government supported the independent Augar review recommendations and introduced the primary legislation necessary to create a single lifelong learning loan allowance that learners can use to upskill and retrain flexibly over their working lives. We therefore support the principle behind the lifelong learning entitlement and the move to a credit-based system for calculating tuition fee limits.

I would like to press the Minister on the importance of face-to-face teaching time. If we want to tackle low-quality provision and ensure that the lifelong learning entitlement lives up to our hopes, we must ensure that learners receive the highest-quality teaching possible. Too often, students receive limited face-to-face teaching time, limited supervision and a higher education experience that falls short of what they were promised. Learners who enrol in the modular courses and training that will become available from January next year will reasonably expect to be able to ask their teacher a question, and to interact with their fellow students, in person.

Just as we must stop unnecessarily pushing young people into courses that offer minimal face-to-face teaching, in return for huge debt and little prospect of employment at the end, we must ensure that new modular courses and training opportunities deliver the highest-quality provision possible. I would therefore be grateful to hear what the Minister is doing to encourage and raise the bar for face-to-face teaching time across the higher education sector, whether for degree courses, modules or training.

I have two brief questions for the Minister. First, how does the Department intend to monitor the impact of the new credit-based tuition fee limit system on providers and on learners? Secondly, given that providers will occur familiarisation and administrative costs as the changes are implemented, and in the light of the wider financial pressures facing the higher education sector, what support will be available to help minimise those burdens?

The Opposition support the regulations. We all hope that introducing tuition fee limits for modular learning will encourage more people to pursue higher-quality training and upskilling opportunities throughout their working lives. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.