Education secretary under fire after it emerged that new plan will cost far more than the £180m he announced this week
The education secretary, Michael Gove, is facing fresh criticism over his decision to scrap the student allowance, as it emerged that replacing the scheme will cost far more than the £180m he announced this week.
The government may have to find up to £130m more to fund a promise to maintain the education maintenance allowance (EMA) for students who started two-year college courses last autumn and who will receive weekly payments of at least £20 until the end of the next academic year.
Gove has also been lobbied by London's mayor, Boris Johnson, who is concerned about a disproportionate impact on young people in the capital.
Johnson became the most senior Conservative to speak out against ministers' decision to replace the £564m scheme with bursaries for the 16-18s. "I don't think we have seen the end of this story," Johnson told a BBC Question Time audience on Thursday night.
"Speaking as the mayor of the city, I want to have another look at this," Johnson said. "I am grateful for what Michael Gove did, I think it was the right move, there needed to be an evolution of the policy and I have to tell you that I don't think we have seen the end of this story."
The Conservative mayor backed the case for better targeting of poorer students before pleading a special case for London where he said there are "large numbers of people" in the city who come from families "on very low incomes".
Johnson's intervention came as research commissioned by Labour from the Commons library showed that the costs of Gove's U-turn will be higher than the £180m announced on Monday. It showed that maintaining payments for current EMA recipients would cost £248m, 44% of the scrapped budget.
However, because Gove has only promised to protect those on the top rate of £30 a week, and says that payment will be cut to £20, it is expected to cost around £131m on top of the £180m bursary fund he announced.
The shadow education secretary, Andy Burnham, said: "Even Boris Johnson can see that Michael Gove has got it wrong on EMA. He's taken a successful scheme – that boosted participation, attendance and attainment in post-16 education – and turned it into a total shambles.
"He should listen to the mayor of London and rethink his unfair decision to scrap EMA. Before the election he pledged to keep the payment, and he should keep that promise."
James Mills, head of the Save EMA campaign, said: "If this is not an empty sentiment then [Johnson] will sign our petition and call on the government to reverse their decision to scrap the scheme, otherwise Londoners will feel he is simply the mayor of bankers and not Londoners."
The education secretary has agreed to meet Johnson, but one of Gove's aides ruled out a further U-turn on the policy.
"There was a discussion with Boris Johnson and there will be a courtesy meeting but the policy is not going to change on the back of that," Gove's spokesman said.
Meanwhile, the Department for Education announced yesterday that it has awarded £125m to the education charity the Sutton Trust to create an endowment fund which will be spent on measures to boost the attainment of poor children. Grants could be used to pay for extra tuition or to pay bonuses to teachers working in inner-city schools.
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the trust, said the fund would be used to seek bold proposals from schools and charities. The money will be targeted at the country's lowest performing schools. With extra cash from private donors and investment returns, it is expected to pay out £200m over 10 to 15 years.
The public money has come from scrapping Labour's plans to extend free school meals to half a million primary school children below the poverty line. The first grants from the fund will be made in the autumn.
Lampl said: "We're going to be trying some bold initiatives, and we're going to evaluate them extremely thoroughly.
"I hope we can come up with some really successful interventions that we can then get other folks, but particularly government, [to adopt]. It will hopefully inform government spending in this area, which of course is in the billions."