Student Finance Wales

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 17 October 2018.

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Photo of Janet Finch-Saunders Janet Finch-Saunders Conservative 2:17, 17 October 2018

I would like to endorse exactly the same sort of comments as Jayne Bryant AM, because I know that my team of staff and I have felt deeply frustrated at the silences at the other end when we're dealing on behalf of someone who is desperate, and the length of time that they've been taking to even respond to correspondence has, frankly, not been acceptable. But when talking about student finance, I am being more and more approached by a number of students who are becoming increasingly concerned about their own levels of debt. Research from the Higher Education Policy Institute shows that graduates from the poorest households will see their debts rise by 20 per cent, from £25,000 to £30,000, and graduates from households with an annual income of £50,000 will see their debts rise by around 40 per cent.

For the past seven years, Bethan Jenkins Assembly Member, our colleague, has raised in this Chamber, so many times, about financial inclusion and financial education through our schools, our colleges and our universities. I've supported her in those calls, and I know that the Government were supposed to be taking some firm steps to look at how we can bring this kind of awareness and profile raising of how to manage your own finances. Cabinet Secretary, how is the Welsh Government acting on all the debates that we've had previously, where there was a mention that this would be taken forward?