Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of setting the annual level of student maintenance support at a level equivalent to a year's salary paid at the National Living Wage for a 36 hour week.

The government is committed to supporting the aspiration of every person who meets the requirements and wants to go to university. However, it is essential we keep our higher education system financially sustainable.

To help students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds progress and excel in higher education, we are future proofing our maintenance offer by increasing loans for living costs in line with forecast inflation every academic year. This approach ensures that students from the lowest income families receive the largest year-on-year cash increases in support and provides long term certainty on the financial support students will receive while studying.

The department will also provide extra support for care leavers, who will automatically become eligible to receive the maximum rate of loan from the 2026/27 academic year.

Additionally, we are reintroducing targeted, means-tested maintenance grants, providing disadvantaged students with up to £1,000 extra per year on top of existing loans for living costs from the 2028/29 academic year.