Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, has accused the Government of turning their backs on young people after they voted against a Labour bid to bring back the student maintenance grant.

Angela Rayner, and Shadow HE, FE, and Skills Minister Gordon Marsden, tabled an amendment to reverse the controversial change from a maintenance grant to a loan, which was announced by the then-Chancellor George Osborne in his last Autumn Statement.

The controversial change was not put to a vote of MPs and was not properly scrutinised by the House of Commons.

Labour drew on cross-party support today for the move to bring back the grant, which would have helped half a million students and be worth up to £3,387 for those from low and middle income backgrounds.

But Tory members defeated the move at the Committee Stage of the Higher Education and Research Bill this afternoon.

Angela Rayner MP said: “So much for the Tories ‘building a country that works for everyone.’

"Theresa May said: 'If you’re a white working class boy you’re less likely than anybody else in Britain to go to university.' 

"Yet by opposing the return of grants her Party has turned its back on helping all students from low and middle income backgrounds. The hypocrisy is staggering.

“The return of maintenance grants would have been of direct, practical help to teenagers, especially those from poorer backgrounds, and would have given them a helping hand up into higher education.

"The Tories say their Higher and Further Education Bill will improve access to university, but then they do the exact opposite.

"They have trebled tuition fees, piling up student debt; frozen the threshold at which students repay those debts making it even costlier for them to study; and now support yet more loans.”

“Labour is committed to restoring maintenance grants - and we will continue to expose the Tories for their breath-taking hypocrisy.”