Orders of the Day — Student Hardship

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:05 pm on 9 July 1992.

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Photo of Mr Bryan Davies Mr Bryan Davies , Oldham Central and Royton 10:05, 9 July 1992

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution. It reflects the grim situation that we all face. As unemployment moves inexorably towards 3 million, there are no jobs for students to take up.

Access funds are another aspect of support that the Government suggest for students, but the higher education institutions have always said that they provide inadequate support. It was predicted that the £25·8 million voted last year would be speedily exhausted because of the real hardship claims by students. During the past two weeks, the Labour party has carried out a survey of access funds, and almost 50 per cent. of the institutions surveyed have already exhausted their full entitlement. That means that students who still have almost three months to go before their next grant cheque and have no access to benefits and, in many cases, no possibility of supplementing their grants with jobs will find that when they apply to their institutions for help they will receive only the bleakest of answers.

Problems also confront students at the end of their courses. Unemployment is reflected in the extent to which this year's recruitment fairs have been operating at only half the level of previous years. Major companies have virtually abandoned graduate recruitment. After just three or four years at college, students are saddled with debts of more than £1,000. They cannot fulfil the Government's rosy view of how they can solve their debt problems, which is to get a job to repay those debts in a short period. For large numbers of students, graduate unemployment means no jobs and substantial debts once they have successfully graduated.

What does all that mean for education? I ask the Minister to reflect on just what perspective he believes the next generation takes of higher education in those circumstances. The moral must be clear, especially for the children of low-income families. Faced with the prospect of debt and of extreme difficulty in sustaining themselves through their higher education courses, children will decide that if there is a job available when they leave school, however poorly paid and low in prospects, it would be better to take that job than to follow the somewhat hazardous prospects of higher education. The Government's oft-declared objective, to increase higher education participation by children from lower-income groups and reduce the extent to which it is enjoyed predominantly by children from middle class homes, will suffer while student support operates at such an inadequate level.

If there is that long-awaited recovery in the economy and the beginnings of some green shoots—although most of us have failed to see them, despite the many Government promises—and if a few jobs are created, young people will seize those jobs rather than put themselves through three or four years of higher education, with all the difficulties that they face and limited prospects when they have graduated.

On the evidence of the past two years of increasing difficulties for students, I appeal to the Government to rethink the basis of student support. If they do not, students and staff of the battered higher education section of our education system, which has been quiescent in recent years—perhaps previously hoping that some of its difficulties would be overcome by a change of Government at the last election but now coming to terms with the fact that this Administration will be in power for at least the next three to four years—will press their grievances, and if they are not met students are bound to advocate their cause. That, as we know from the past, has often led to considerable disruption in higher education, to the cost of students, the education system and, ultimately, the nation.

If students are impoverished, if they receive the harsh lesson from the Government that reason will not prevail, the Government will have only themselves to blame for the reaction that will undoubtedly result.