Ministers lay out plans to reduce gap between poorest and most affluent pupils – UK politics live | Politics
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The education secretary is asked about growing anger over the rising cost of student loans since the chancellor’s decision last November to freeze the salary threshold for “schedule 2” student loan repayments for three years.
Rachel Reeves said the salary due to repay Schedule 2 student loans will be frozen at £29,385 for three years from next April. This means borrowers will have to pay even more for their student loans as they benefit from pay increases.
Plan 2 loans were taken by students in England starting university between September 2012 and July 2023, and students starting in Wales since September 2012. Graduates have to pay back 9% of everything they earn above a certain threshold (currently £28,470 a year).
Interest on loans is charged up to RPI inflation plus 3%, depending on how much the graduate earns. The Conservative Party, which introduced the loans to the coalition government, has now promised to limit the rate of loans to the retail price index (RPI), in a move that will further increase the pressure on the Treasury.
When asked on Sky News how he would help provide loans to two graduates with large amounts of debt, Phillipson said:
Now I understand the problem. I see the problem in reality, as a government you need to look at priorities, what you can do and how fast you can do it. This is really difficult, given our situation with public finances.
Phillipson said he would introduce maintenance grants to less well-off students. “The repayment threshold is rising this year. It will then be frozen in future years.”
Education minister says parents will get education support for their children in ‘weeks’, not months or years
Bridget Phillipson is asked about the government’s school reforms for children with special educational needs and disabilities in England (Send).
Trevor Phillips states that there are 1.7 million children in need of special education and approximately 500,000 of them are school students. It says the proportion of children who have education, health and care (EHCP) plans, which identify the child’s needs and set out the support they should receive, is increasing. He asks why this might be, and Phillipson replies:
We have seen that support for children with Send is treated almost entirely as a separate issue rather than being an integral part of our school system. Many children will encounter some form of difficulty at some point in their school life and need extra support.
But the system we have now is one that shows that parents have to fight really hard to get the education, health and care plan to get the support their children need. I’ve heard from so many parents how hard this is, how devastating it is. It may take years. It’s a really hostile situation.
Pressed by Trevor Phillips if the government promised an EHCP decision would be made within weeks rather than months or years, Phillipson said:
Yes. We will ensure that children receive support much faster than they do now. And my commitment to parents is that when they see all the documents published tomorrow, they will see a government focused on delivering better outcomes for their children. I am extremely ambitious for every child in our country.
Phillipson later confirmed that it would be “a matter of weeks, not months and years”. Many EHCPS are delivered by local authorities beyond the 20-week period.
Education Secretary to face questions as government plans to halve achievement gap in England’s schools
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. Education Secretary, Bridget PhillipsonHe will soon be speaking to the BBC and Sky News and is likely to be asked about the government’s plans to halve the attainment gap between the poorest students in England and their wealthier peers.
Technical review of schoolsThe law, which will be published in full tomorrow, will set a target to halve the gap in disadvantage by the time children born in this parliament finish secondary school.
It will detail proposals to change the criteria for schools to receive funding to support the most disadvantaged pupils and identify two new programs to address the performance of disadvantaged pupils locally in the North East and on the coast.
According to the Department for Education (DfE), the disadvantage gap index for year 11s in the latest GCSE results was 3.92.
It had previously narrowed from 4.07 in 2011 to 3.66 in 2019/20, with minor fluctuations in between. It then expanded again after the pandemic and reached the highest level of the last decade with 3.94 in 2022/23.
Phillipson, the Sunderland MP who grew up in the north-east, said the reforms would help end the “one size fits all” system and offer a “golden opportunity to cut the link between history and success”.
The school’s white paper will reportedly also set out proposals for transforming special educational needs and disabilities (To send) system may be one of the defining policy challenges of Keir Starmer’s fragile administration.
My colleague Alexandra Topping and children with a legal right to special needs support will face scrutiny when they move on to secondary school. Report by Richard Adams.
The reforms will raise the bar for children in England to be entitled to an education, health and care plan (EHCP), which gives children with Send the legal right to receive support.
