Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-01-19.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the planned replacement of student bursaries by loans, how many grants for higher cost students will be made to universities in respect of degree courses in nursing in 2017–18.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Institutional autonomy and academic freedom are key strengths of our higher education system. To protect these, the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 prohibits Ministers from being involved in decisions about funding for individual institutions or particular courses. Details on teaching grant funding will be set out in the normal way in the annual grant letter from ministers to The Higher Education Funding Council.
As part of the changes announced at the Spending Review, we will lift the cap on the number of students that can get on to nursing courses and provide nursing students with access to around 25% more financial support. We expect this reform to enable universities to provide up to 10,000 additional nursing, midwifery and allied health training places over this parliament.