Angela Rayner and Gordon Marsden have called for the advanced learner loan underspend to be reallocated on adult education.

Labour’s shadow education secretary and shadow FE minister have written to the chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond ahead of the Budget on Monday to call for greater funding for FE.

The letter highlights the fall in funding for adult education and college budgets since 2010, when the Conservatives took control.

The full text of the letter

Dear Mr Hammond,

We are writing to you ahead of your budget next week to request urgent new funding for the further education sector.

As you will, I am sure, be aware, thousands of college staff, students and trade union representatives marched on Parliament last week to highlight the negative impact cuts in funding have had on the sector - and the desperate need for an uplift in funding in your Budget.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that spending on further education and skills has fallen by £3.3 billion in real terms between 2010-11 and 2017-18.

These cuts have been most severe in adult education, which has seen a real-terms cut of nearly £1.7 billion, around half of its budget, and further education, which has faced a £1 billion cut amounting to around a quarter of its budget.

The Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, alongside London Economics, has recently published a report which shows that there is a £760 per student shortfall between the funding that sixth-form colleges receive and the amount they need to educate their students.

As the Association of Colleges has highlighted, this has resulted in a drastic drop in learning opportunities for adults, fewer hours of teaching and support for young people, teacher pay at less than 80 per cent of schools and support staff pay cut in real terms for several years. 

These cuts to further education have come as employers have reported another rise in the number of vacancies they are facing as a result of skills shortages - and have a significant impact not just on students and staff but on businesses and our wider economy.

With the significant challenges of Brexit and automation approaching, it is essential, now more than ever, that we properly fund our further education sector to deliver the skilled workforce and reskilling opportunities the economy needs. 

There is a major shortfall in funding outside of the traditional higher education route - and with the prime minister now promising that austerity is over, you must use this budget to give our FE sector the resources it needs.

Every year since their introduction, the Treasury has been returned a substantial sum of money from unspent allocation of advanced learner loans. Perhaps this year, you could allocate this underspend back into the Department of Education to be used on adult learning and other training initiatives.

For example, you could address urgently transitional funding for the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) to combat losses they will face as a result of devolution settlements, or the financial concerns at the Open University, which has been severely hit by the drop off in adult learners since tuition fees were tripled.

I hope you will be able to give these concerns and needs, on which there is consensus as to their urgency across the whole sector, the attention that they need from government.