Baroness Barran (Con)

I thank the Minister for his remarks, although some of the points raised, particularly by my noble friends Lord Black of Brentwood and Lord Lexden, perhaps deserve more consideration by the Government. I will come back to those in a moment. In relation to my Amendment 63 regarding bursaries, I think that I am right in saying that the provision of education is a public benefit in its own right, not the provision of bursaries. The noble Lord may be trying to dial up the public benefit, but education sits firmly within that definition. My noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood was extremely eloquent in relation to my Amendment 64. I thank him for the examples that he gave of the impact of pressure on these specialist schools more widely, for the economy and for our higher education sector, as in the example of Cardiff University. As he said, these are not niche issues but absolutely central to our thriving creative industries. The Government rightly talk about growth as their primary objective but if their actions will limit growth rather than promote it, that is cause for really serious concern. The noble Lord talked about adjustments for the music and dance scheme, but he will obviously be aware that the sector is extremely worried about what will happen after 2025-26. There is an adjustment for the current year but no visibility beyond that. Similarly, in relation to Amendment 66 and the recalculated rates for those eligible for the continuity education allowance, the same question mark remains over the longer term. If there is one thing in this group that the Minister should reflect on very hard, it is Amendment 69B regarding children in local authority care who attend our independent schools. I join my noble friends in absolutely lauding the work of the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation. In closing, to quote my noble friends again, whichever way the Government want to look at it, we either have clear public benefit from all the work that is reflected in the amendments in this group or we have drivers of growth, whether through international students—where, as we have heard, numbers are now at risk of falling sharply—or through providing a kind of fuel for our creative industries. Whichever perspective one looks from, threatening these schools is an unwise strategy and I hope very much that the Minister will reflect on these remarks. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.