The Labour Party have tabled an opposition day debate and annulment motion to take place on Tuesday, forcing the government into a debate in the House of Commons on their plans to replace student maintenance grants with a loan system.

Maintenance grants are non-repayable grants of up to £3,387 per year that are intended to help students from low-income backgrounds pay for living costs such as rent, food, and energy bills. Maintenance grants are paid to roughly half a million students currently, and the replacement of these grants with loans would see these students graduate with debts of up to £53,000 rather than the current £40,300.

The Conservatives have been criticised for using a delegated legislation committee of eighteen MPs to scrap grants last week, with the motion passing with ten ayes to eight noes. The move has been attacked as ‘undemocratic’ and ‘underhanded’, with Labour’s motion receiving cross party support from the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, Greens, DUP, SDLP, and Plaid Cymru.

Writing in The New Statesman, Angela Eagle, shadow secretary of state for business, innovation, and skills, called the plans ‘an assault on aspiration, an assault on opportunity, and an assault on those who want to get on in life’, with the government’s Equality Impact Assessment showing changes will impact more on students from BME backgrounds, as well as women, disabled students, and older learners.

Speaking in the Summer, the chancellor, George Osborne, justified the changes by claiming ‘There is a basic unfairness in asking taxpayers to fund the grants of people who are likely to earn a lot more than them’.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies have said the changes would lead to no long-term improvement in the government’s finances.

Benjamin Cook