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Williamson swerves question on student nurses’ loan debt

Education secretary dodges question on tuition fees for student nurses and doctors during committee hearing

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has promised to give an influential select committee clarity on whether student nurses are liable for tuition fee debt while they work in hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

Some final-year medical and nursing students have been fast-tracked into working in the NHS during the last six months of their studies, while second-year students have been encouraged to opt in to working in the NHS at this time.

During a meeting of the commons education committee on 29 April, committee chair and Conservative MP Robert Halfon asked the Department for Education for clarity on whether nursing students who are working for the NHS during the pandemic are still paying tuition fees.

“Are they paying tuition fees, and if they are, can you make sure they are not paying for tuition that they are not receiving?” he asked Williamson.

But Williamson did not provide an answer and told Halfon he would “come back to you on that point”. The secretary of state will now be required to provide a written answer to the committee.

After the hearing, Halfon—who has previously backed nursing degree apprenticeships—told Research Professional News that he would “await [Williamson’s] response” on whether student nurses are expected to pay tuition fees while they work on the NHS frontline. “I hope very much that those student nurses working in the NHS at the moment will be financially supported in every way,” he added.

Research Professional News has previously reported on the issue and has asked NHS England, the Department for Health and Social Care, Health Education England and the Department for Education for an answer to whether or not nursing students are continuing to rack up tuition fee debt as they work for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.

The DfE was the only department to provide a statement. A spokesperson said: “We are grateful to all students who choose to support our NHS during this extremely difficult time and will be ensuring all students who do opt in are rewarded fairly for their hard work. We urge others to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.”

Williamson also declined to give a date for when the government will respond to Universities UK’s request for financial help for universities, telling Labour MP Fleur Anderson that the DfE was “working with the sector in terms of actually pulling a package together and we are hoping to do so in the near future.”

It had originally been hoped the government would respond quickly, but the Treasury is understood to be hesitant about backing the proposal. Today the vice-chancellors’ body Universities UK and MillionPlus, which represents modern universities, published updated proposals to “flesh out” the bailout plea.

Updating the government’s response to the Augar review of post-18 education— published in May last year—Williamson confirmed the DfE “will still be looking at doing a response in line with the spending review”. The Whitehall spending review has also been postponed from its July date due to the coronavirus. The government has not said when it is likely to happen.

But Williamson told Labour MP Apsana Begum there was a “considerable amount of work” going on and an upcoming white paper on further education would provide “one of our key planks” in terms of the government’s response to Auguar’s recommendations.