Ministers have been accused of an “outrageous” attempt to sneak through their proposals to end student grants in England without proper scrutiny by MPs.
The plan to scrap maintenance grants, which help half a million of the poorest students pay for university life, will go through a legislation committee on Thursday, without a vote and debate on the floor of the House of Commons.
It was first put forward by George Osborne in July, when he proposed turning maintenance grants into loans from September 2016 in a bid to save money.
Labour is opposing the change and the lack of scrutiny. Gordon Marsden, the shadow universities minister, said it was “not simply technical tinkering but a major change by the government that will deprive around half a million of England’s students from lower income and disadvantaged households, of maintenance grant funding”.
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