Labour has promised to reintroduce maintenance grants for students ¡°who need them most¡±, funded via the planned levy on international student fees.

Students studying ¡°priority courses¡± will be offered additional support, with ¡°tens of thousands¡± set to benefit, the party said.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson used her speech to the party¡¯s annual conference in Liverpool to announce the new grants, which Labour said would be in place ¡°by the end of this Parliament¡±.

Phillipson has been under pressure to increase support for students after raising tuition fees for this academic year. The rising costs facing students have led to an increase in part-time work, while more students are also choosing to commute from their family home instead of studying in a new area.

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The new grants will be means-tested and available for those taking courses from level 4 to level 6. But Labour said these programmes must ¡°support the industrial strategy and the Labour government¡¯s wider mission to renew Britain¡±.

It said the grants ¡°will be fully funded by a new International Student Levy, ensuring that revenue from international students is used to benefit working-class domestic students, and support growth and opportunity¡±.

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Phillipson told the conference in Liverpool that Labour was putting universities ¡°back in the service of working-class young people¡±.

She said she had taken ¡°the decisive steps we needed on university finances,?so opportunity is there tomorrow, for all who want it¡±.?

¡°But I know, you know, that we must do more,¡± Phillipson added. ¡°So that is why today I¡¯m announcing that this Labour government will introduce new targeted maintenance grants for students who need them most.??

¡°Conference, their time at college or university should be spent learning or training, not working every hour God sends. That is the difference a Labour government makes.¡±

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Speaking in a fringe session on widening access hosted by the Social Market Foundation shortly after the minister¡¯s announcement, Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, said that while the return of maintenance grants was welcome, it would come at the expense of a group of students who the British higher education sector was ¡°really fortunate¡± to host.

If the full value of the levy was passed on to international students, some of them might be unable to afford to come to the UK, Stern warned, noting that the education of domestic teaching was already a loss-making activity for universities.

¡°This is a three-cup trick,¡± Stern said. ¡°You give money to a small group of students over here, but where does it come from? It comes from a source of funding which is massively cross-subsidising the provision of domestic education and I think that¡¯s a mistake.¡±

But, Alex Stanley, vice-president for higher education at the National Union of Students, described the move as a ¡°real win¡± for students.

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¡°It takes some of the burden off of parents, makes lives easier for students and gets rid of some of that burden of debt, so that¡¯d be a fantastic win for all of us.¡±

Nick Harrison, chief executive of the Sutton Trust, said it was a?¡°positive step in breaking down barriers to opportunity for students from the poorest backgrounds¡± and helped to establish?¡°the important principle that the poorest should not graduate with the highest debts¡± but he said grants should be extended to all students from low income backgrounds in the future.

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Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), said treating international students ¡°as cash cows¡± to fund maintenance grants amounted to ¡°robbing Peter to pay Paul¡±.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com