It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before prorogation.

The department regularly reviews advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and Public Health England to ensure that our policies are guided by the most up-to-date scientific evidence.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) are the independent experts who advise the government on which vaccines the UK should use. The JCVI also provide advice on who should be offered the vaccines.

The JCVI have advised that the second phase of vaccine prioritisation should continue to be based on age. They advise that an age-based approach remains the most effective way of reducing death and hospitalisation from COVID-19 and of ensuring that more people are protected quickly.

Everyone in the top 9 priority cohorts (those aged 50 and over, those who are clinically extremely vulnerable and frontline health and social care workers) has now been offered a first dose of the vaccine. Our target remains to offer a vaccine to all adults aged 18 and over by 31 July.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) publishes data on the number of 18 year olds accepted to full-time undergraduate higher education (HE) courses in the UK by domicile and parliament constituency.

The attached table shows the number of 18 year old accepted applicants to UK HE providers, the population estimates for the number of 18 year olds and the entry rate of 18 year old accepted applicants to UK HE providers for the Portsmouth South constituency and England.

In 2020, the entry rate of 18 year old accepted applicants to UK HE providers for Portsmouth South was 26.9%, compared to 37.9% for England, a difference of 11 percentage points.

We recognise that many students are facing additional mental health challenges due to the disruption and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Protecting the wellbeing of higher education students is vital, and it is important that students can continue to access the mental health and wellbeing support that they need, both whilst learning remotely and when they return to in-person teaching.

We expect higher education providers to continue to support their students, which has included making support services accessible from a distance and reaching out to those students who are likely to be more vulnerable. We encourage students to stay in touch with their provider’s student support and welfare teams, as these services are likely to continue to be an important source of support.

My hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Universities, has engaged with universities on this issue and has written to Vice Chancellors on numerous occasions, outlining that student welfare should remain a priority. She has also convened a working group of representatives from the higher education and health sectors specifically to address the current and pressing issues that students are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

My hon. Friends, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families and the Minister of State for Universities, have also convened a Mental Health in Education Action Group. The group will drive action to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people as they return to educational settings and will provide enhanced support for transitions between educational settings in the autumn.

We have worked with the Office for Students (OfS) to provide Student Space, which has been funded by up to £3 million by the OfS. Student Space is a mental health and wellbeing platform designed to bridge any gaps in support for students arising from this unprecedented situation. It is designed to work alongside existing services and provides dedicated, one-to-one telephone, text, and web chat facilities as well as a collaborative online platform providing vital mental health and wellbeing resources. The platform has been extended to cover the whole 2020/21 academic year.

We have also worked with the OfS to clarify that universities and other higher education providers can draw upon existing funding from the student premium to increase their hardship funds for students. We have made an additional £85 million of student hardship funding available to higher education providers in the 2020/21 academic year. Furthermore, we have asked the OfS to allocate £15 million towards student mental health in 2021/22, through proposed reforms to Strategic Priorities grant funding, to help address the challenges to student mental health posed by the transition to university, given the increasing demand for mental health services. This will target those students in greatest need of such services, including vulnerable groups and hard-to-reach students.

As part of the mental health recovery action plan, the government has provided an additional £13 million to ensure that young adults aged 18 to 25, including university students, are supported with tailored mental health services.

Students struggling with their mental health can also access support via online resources from the NHS, Public Health England via the Every Mind Matters website and the mental health charity Mind: https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/ and https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/coronavirus/student-mental-health-during-coronavirus/.

We recognise that this has been a difficult period for sixth form students and so in this academic year we provided a £96 million 16-19 Tuition Fund for all providers of 16-19 education, including school sixth forms and sixth form colleges to provide catch up tuition for those most impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. We recently announced a £102 million extension of the Fund for the 2021/22 academic year to ensure that students can recover from the disruption and continue to progress in their education. We have also appointed Sir Kevan Collins, as Education Recovery Commissioner, to advise the government on the approach for education recovery and will be working with him to develop a full catch-up programme across the education sector around focusing on time, teaching and targeted interventions.

As the Foreign Secretary has made clear, China's attempt to silence those highlighting human rights violations in Xinjiang, including academics, is unwarranted and unacceptable. Academic freedom and freedom of speech are fundamental UK values and cornerstones of the UK's world class higher education system. The FCDO are offering support to all those impacted by these sanctions. We will continue to work with international partners to build the international caucus of those willing to speak out against China's human rights violations, and we will continue to call on China to respect freedom of expression.

The government recognises the benefits of providing a healthy meal to the most disadvantaged students and is committed to providing free meals to those that need them.

From September 2014, further education institutions have been required to make provision for free meals to eligible disadvantaged students. The institution can decide for themselves whether to offer a meal, or a voucher or credit to exchange for a meal on-site or off-site.

Further guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/free-meals-in-further-education-funded-institutions-guide-for-the-2020-to-2021-academic-year.

Additionally, the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund, introduced in 2011, provides financial support to help students overcome specific barriers to participation so they can remain in education. It can be used in conjunction with free meals in further education funding, to meet individual student needs.

We understand that this is a very difficult and uncertain time for students. We are working with universities, higher education (HE) institutions, mission groups, unions and professional sector bodies to make sure that all reasonable efforts are being made to enable all students to continue their studies and to provide the support required for them to do so.

In these exceptional circumstances, we recognise that some students may face financial hardship. On 13 April, we announced that we are making a further £15 million of additional student hardship funding available for the 2020/21 academic year. In total, we have made an additional £85 million of funding available for student hardship since December. HE providers have flexibility in how they distribute the funding to students in a way that best prioritises those in greatest need.

To support with this further, we have worked closely with the Office for Students to help clarify that HE providers can draw upon existing funding to increase hardship funds and support disadvantaged and vulnerable students impacted by COVID-19. HE providers are able to use the funding, worth around £256 million for academic year 2020/21, towards student hardship funds, including the purchase of IT equipment

We want to make sure all students receive the right amount of student support to complete their studies. Students who received a loan for living costs at the living away from home rates in the spring term have received a loan at the same rate in the summer term, even though they may be staying at their family home to comply with public health guidance. This change to the funding rules will help cover any accommodation costs students may still be incurring at their term time address in the summer term. The maximum loans for living costs for the 2020/21 academic year have been increased by 2.9%, with a further 3.1% increase for the 2021/22 academic year, to record levels in cash terms.

Students who have applied for a loan for living costs for the current 2020/21 academic year have been awarded a lower amount than the maximum and believe their household income for the 2020-21 tax year will drop by at least 15% compared to the household income they provided when they were initially assessed, can apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.

In addition, students undertaking courses that would normally require attendance on-site, but for which learning has moved either fully or partially online due to COVID-19, will qualify for living cost support in the 2020/21 academic year as they would ordinarily, provided they continue to engage with their HE provider. This also applies when the student is prevented from attending the course physically and is required to study online due to shielding.

The current measures aim to target support for students in greatest need, and we will continue to monitor the situation and adjust sector guidance and support where necessary.

Further Education providers (FE) deliver mental health support to their students in their wrap around, pastoral offer. This includes a number of initiatives supported by the department.

For example, we set up the ‘Wellbeing for Education Return’, an £8 million scheme funding expert advisers and training in every local authority area to support wellbeing recovery as children and young people returned to school and FE from September 2020.

Some of the colleges funded through the £5.4 million College Collaboration Fund are developing new ways to support student and staff mental health and wellbeing, including the ‘Let’s Chat’ programme developed by Weston College. Once developed, these resources will be available to all further education providers online. Details of the College Collaboration Fund are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/college-collaboration-fund-ccf-projects/resources-college-collaboration-fund-ccf.

More recently we have announced a £79 million boost to children and young people’s mental health support, including through Mental Health Support Teams. The support teams – which provide early intervention on mental health and emotional wellbeing issues in schools and colleges – will grow from the 59 set up by last March to around 400 by April 2023, supporting nearly 3 million children and young people. This increase means that millions of children and young people will have access to significantly expanded mental health services.

We also know that some FE providers are creating their own innovative programmes to support student and staff mental health. The Sheffield College have rolled out their Uniheads mental health platform, which helps students develop good mental health knowledge and skills, build mental fitness, and address poor mental health.

The department has convened a Mental Health in Education Action Group, which will look specifically at how we support young people with their wellbeing as they return to school, college, and university after this difficult year. On 3 February 2021, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, appointed Dr. Alex George as a Youth Mental Health Ambassador to advise the government and raise the profile of mental health education and wellbeing in schools, colleges, and universities.

We have always been committed to getting students back onto campus as soon as the public health situation allows. At every stage, we have prioritised students’ education and helping students to meet their learning outcomes, which is why students on creative and practical courses or practice-based courses have been able to return to in-person teaching since March.

We understand that, in some universities, teaching may have concluded by 17 May. However, the wider experience outside the classroom is also important and we know that students are keen to get back to campus and universities are keen to have them back. We want to enable this as soon as the public health situation allows, even if some universities have concluded teaching.

A return in line with step 3 of the roadmap allows time for students to receive some teaching, engage with cocurricular activities, take part in face-to-face careers support and in activities to build employability skills. As students return to campus, there will also be more opportunities for universities to provide mental health support for them.

For many students, teaching does not end in May. For example, postgraduate students, both taught and research, will continue their studies throughout the summer, as will some students on some healthcare courses or who start at different times throughout the year. It is also open to universities, as autonomous institutions, to put on teaching outside of their normal term dates, if they consider this appropriate to fulfil their duties to their students.

I think we are all very much looking forward to welcoming all university students back, and we very much expect to be seeing that as part of the next step. I would like to thank universities for the work they have been doing to ensure that universities are covid-secure,

including extensive testing of students in universities and the greater availability of the home testing kits that we have been able to deliver on. We will continue to work with Universities UK, the Russell Group and the whole sector to ensure that students are able to return to university safely at the earliest possible moment and that we are able to welcome a new cohort of students in September.

Although I do not have a university in my constituency, I do have many young people who travel to universities up and down the country. They are concerned—financial concerns, accommodation, freshers’ and concerns—about going back to university in September and October. What are the Government doing to ensure that there is a smooth return for those who have already attended and a welcome for those who are new to university?

We recognise that it is incredibly important that we do everything we can do to support students, which is why we made available £85 million of hardship funding. We also recognise how important it is that we have a really thriving higher education sector. That is why we have maintained investment in research and development, which is the backbone of so many of our universities.

Students have had a difficult year dealing with online learning, isolation, and increased student poverty and debt. As these young people will play a key role in driving economic recovery, does the Secretary of State agree that it is time to reassess this Government’s position on tuition fees and free students from the shackles of debt?

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and the principal of Hopwood Hall College to discuss that. It is incredibly important to ensure that we get this right and that it works, and for T-levels such an important element of that is the industrial placements that those young people will be able to benefit from.

I think that there is agreement on both sides of the House on the importance of getting this right, and I very much hope that we can continue to build on the original consensus about the vital role that T-levels can play in ensuring that our young people have the right level of technical skills to meet our future economic needs.

The Government have invested £165 million to help providers to prepare for and deliver industry placements, building capacity in their relationships with employers. We have invested nearly £7 million so far in direct support for employers, and we are also exploring what short-term funded support may be appropriate to enable employers to offer placements.

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that all students taking T-Levels receive a high quality industry placement.

The Government have invested £165 million to help providers to prepare for and deliver industry placements, building capacity in their relationships with employers. We have invested nearly £7 million so far in direct support for employers, and we are also exploring what short-term funded support may be appropriate to enable employers to offer placements.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is so vital that we see the roll-out of T-levels. These qualifications have been designed hand in glove with employers to make sure that they are delivering not only for students, but for the employers themselves. As we roll out our skills accelerators across the country, we are putting in £65 million-worth of further investment to ensure that we start to link up jobs, skills and young people, to ensure that we are getting the workforce right for the future.