Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the implications for her Department's policies are of the findings from the Institute for Fiscal Studies of 4 July 2017 on the comparative effect of the removal of the maintenance grant on levels of debt from students from poorer and richer families.

Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university at a record rate – they were 43 per cent more likely to go to university in 2016 than they were in 2009.

The Government is committed to maintaining the UK’s world class higher education system while living within its means and ensuring all those with the talent to benefit from a higher education can afford to do so. To put higher education funding onto a more sustainable footing, the Government asked future graduates to meet more of the costs of their studies through replacing maintenance grants with loans.

The equality analysis for the 2016/17 student support regulations assessed the impact of this policy change, including the impact on students from low income backgrounds. It is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/482110/bis-15-639-student-finance-equality-analysis.pdf.