The introduction of tuition fees has not led to fewer disadvantaged young people going into higher education. As I have already highlighted, the 18-year-old entry rate for disadvantaged students in England increased from 14.4% in 2011 to 25.1% in 2022. We saw record numbers of disadvantaged students going into higher education in 2022, with the rate for students on free school meals going up from 20% to 30%.
I thank the Minister for that answer but, in the last academic year, English students graduated with £30,000 more debt, on average, than their Scottish counterparts. Despite this, both the Government and the Labour party refuse to follow the Scottish Government’s lead by abolishing tuition fees in England. With more than 16,000 undergraduates dropping out of higher education this year, will this Government admit that their policies are pushing students into debt, and often out of university?
Actually, we are being fair both to students and to all those taxpayers who do not go to university. I might point out that low-income students living away from home will qualify for more living cost support over the coming year than low-income students in Scotland.
The new Labour dream of 50% of young people going to university has left many saddled with debt, a third of graduates unable to find graduate jobs and more than half of graduates never earning enough to repay their student loans, so I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today of a reduction in the number of low-value degrees, which benefit neither students nor taxpayers. Will the Department look to go further by identifying whole universities that could be transformed into higher technical and vocational institutions, which would give far more young people the opportunities and training they really need for the productive jobs of the future?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, in the sense that the Labour party was all about quantity over quality, and we are about quality, high standards and a good education. We are already doing a lot of what she wants, because we are introducing institutes of technology, which are collaborations between higher education and further education that provide flagship skills and teach higher technical qualifications, with 21 across the country. They are doing exactly what she wants us to do.