Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee

24 June 2026

Contents updated on 24 Jun 2026

The Minister moves the motion, sets the statutory context of the draft 2026 Regulations as the first SI to implement the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, and explains the shift from annual fee caps to a credit-based fee limit system for levels 4–6 from January 2027, including per‑credit calculations and assurances that overall caps remain unchanged.

Committee Wed, 24 Jun 2026 House of Commons

00:16 - 00:39

Speaker 1

Draft Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026. Before I ask the Minister to move the motion, any honourable member or official who wishes to take their jacket off has the chair's permission. Thanks very much. Minister, would you be good enough to move the motion?

00:39 - 02:39

Speaker 2

I beg to move that the committee has considered the draft Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026. The draft regulations were laid before the House on the 18th of May. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr. Streeter. This statutory instrument is the first of three pieces of secondary legislation needed to implement the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, the LLE. It establishes a new system of tuition fee limits for higher education courses and modules that will begin on or after the 1st of January 2027.

The LLE is a major reform to student finance, creating a single flexible funding system for level 4 to 6 across further and higher education. It supports people to learn, upskill, and retrain throughout their working lives and delivers one of our core commitments from the post-16 education and skills white paper, underpinning the growth and skills missions. The concept of a Lifelong Learning Entitlement stems from the recommendations made by Sir Philip Augar's independent panel to the post-18 education and funding review back in 2019. Primary legislation in 2022-2023 under the previous government establishes the framework, and these regulations are the next steps in delivering it, a true cross-party effort. The specific regulations before us today set out how tuition fee limits will apply under the LLE.

A tuition fee limit is the maximum amount that a provider can charge per year if they are subject to a fee cap. Currently, this limit is 9,250 pounds for standard full-time courses. These fixed annual fee limits, regardless of the volume of study undertaken, suit traditional degrees but do not work for shorter courses or modules. These regulations introduce a credit-based system to change this. Credits are a widely recognised measure of learning, where typically with one credit equal to around 10 hours of learning.

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