Hansard

To start, I thank my colleagues on the Education, Children and Young People Committee, the clerks who supported us and all those who gave evidence in this important inquiry.

Widening access to education is crucial if we are to open opportunities for everyone in Scotland to live up to their potential. That is why this inquiry was so important. It is not about only a theoretical policy intent; it is about lives and changing them. For that to happen, we need a tertiary education system that is match fit. Sadly, in Scotland, we face significant challenges. While universities and colleges are working their socks off to support all to have the grades to get there, they are doing that against a tide of cuts and a lack of priority for that work from their Government. The Scottish Government’s own “Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement 2024-25”, which accompanied the 2024-25 budget, said:

“There is a significant risk that the reduction in the HE resource budget will increase competition for remaining university places, which could disadvantage learners from socio-economically disadvantaged areas with lower prior attainment.”

According to what we heard in committee, that is, sadly, the case.

Progress towards the next target—18 per cent of entrants from the most deprived areas getting into university by 2026—has stalled. Data shows that, in 2023, fewer applications were accepted from people from disadvantaged backgrounds than was the case in 2022. The target is meant to be met in 2026. That is right around the corner, and, as the committee acknowledged, it is unlikely to be met. Missing it is not just about numbers, though. Our constituents are losing out on lives, opportunities and their futures.

The committee also looked at factors other than socioeconomic factors that can lock people out of opportunity, and we found that many are interlinked. We heard about the significant barriers that disabled students and care leavers face. Disabled students—particularly visually impaired students—are still not getting the support that they need to access the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers. We took seriously compelling evidence on that, which I ask the minister to consider carefully. As a former disabled student, I know that that fact will be, at best, intensely disappointing to disabled students and, at worst, the difference between being able to go to university and not being able to do so.

That the recommendations from the most recent review of disabled student support, which was completed years ago, have not been actioned not only is a failure of responsibility on the part of the Government, but is having a real-life impact on students in Scotland and their ability to get into higher education and stay there. It is leaving lives on hold. For that reason, during the inquiry, I pressed the Scottish Government for a commitment to review again the support that is available for disabled students. I asked it to build on the previous review, so that it did not put student support services in colleges and universities—and, indeed, students—under further pressure to repeat themselves. I asked for the actions in the review to build on the recommendations in the previous one. The minister has not been able to update us on that issue today, but I would like him to do so in due course, because it is a serious issue that is locking many people out of further and higher education.

Part-time students were included in the Government review, which the committee and my party hugely welcomed. The needs of part-time students must be addressed, especially because we know that the trend is towards more flexible study options, such as those offered by the Open University. The review, which has concluded, was to consider the impact on and support for part-time students. I would welcome an update on that from the Government sooner rather than later.

Amid our challenging environment, our universities and colleges in Scotland are doing incredible work to widen access. I thank all the organisations that, ahead of the debate, sent briefings on the work that they are doing in that area. Seventy-one per cent of Open University students in Scotland—73 per cent in Glasgow—are in employment, with 30 per cent of students sharing the fact that they have a disability. Thirty-two per cent of University of the West of Scotland students are from SIMD 1 areas, and, for 11 years in a row, the university has been ranked as the best at widening access in Scotland. As we have heard, Robert Gordon University is also doing a great deal of work, including through its northern lights initiative and its work with colleges, to open up access to its courses. I put on record my thanks to all universities and colleges across Scotland. Scottish Labour and I will always be on their side.

Finally, I will speak about what a widening access agenda seeks to deliver. It cannot just be about getting into university or college; it has to be about staying there, graduating and then getting a good job. That is why the wider context matters, too. As National Union of Students Scotland has said, education might be free—and rightly, we agree—but studying and delivering it is not. Experts across Scotland told the committee that Scottish tertiary education is in crisis. Over the past decade, higher education funding has plummeted by 20 per cent in real terms per student. In further education, Audit Scotland has reported that Scottish Government funding for colleges has fallen by 20 per cent in the past five years. That is having a real-life impact on the life chances of the students who are furthest from access to education.

In 2023, the Institute for Fiscal Studies set out that the cost of living support that students can access in Scotland has

“become less generous over time, with total support for the poorest students cut by 16% ... in real terms between 2013–14 and 2022–23.”

Although students in Scotland have been able to borrow more per year for living costs, in the absence of more maintenance support, that leaves poorer students with more debt. The average student debt stood at £17,990 in 2023-24 compared to only £6,090 in 2007, when the Scottish National Party pledged to scrap student debt.

Rhetoric on widening access rings hollow if people cannot stay on and get on; it rings hollow if the very institutions that we need to deliver it are not a priority for their Government; and it rings hollow if the significant challenges that students, including disabled students and care leavers, face go unaddressed any longer. There is a way to go before the class, glass and step ceiling that is in the way of opportunity in Scottish education is gone. This Government has had 18 years, but too many people are still locked out. I fundamentally believe that, in May, the public will see that and will not afford it more time to make the same mistakes again.