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Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 22 October 2025

Debate

Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy

Contribution

My Lords, I declare my interest as a visiting professor at King’s and chairman of FutureLearn. I welcome the Statement, particularly, like my noble friend Lord Willetts, the bold decision to index fees with inflation—it is absolutely the right thing to do after a decade of real-terms freezes. However, I regret the missed opportunity to fix some of the big problems with the lifelong learning entitlement and the decision to take away with the other hand what the Government have just given on the fees front. Can the Minister please confirm the scope of the proposed tax on international tuition fees? Does it include, for example, online provision and transnational education—that is, courses taken by students from British universities while they are studying in other countries? Given that the Government have acknowledged that they do not have a strong evidence base on elasticity of demand, would it not be a better idea to pause to rollout of this tax or, better still, shelve it altogether?

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