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(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Student Loan Repayment Plans
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered student loan repayment plans.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. Students across the country have been protesting the unfairness of the student loan system—a system that millions of young people believe is rigged against them and in urgent need of reform. On that I suspect there will be broad agreement—at least I hope so. But this system did not appear by accident. It was designed in 2012, expanded thereafter and defended for over a decade by people who now criticise it.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
I was not intending to intervene, but I am afraid what the hon. Member said is not correct. Tuition fees were first introduced by the Conservative Government in the early 1990s and then by the Labour Government in 1998, with top-up fees in 2004. Will he accept that and then proceed?
Jas Athwal
I will expand on this as I go on, because I think everybody is involved, and I shall distribute responsibility fairly across the board.
Since 2012, around 5.8 million people have taken out plan 2 loans. They were told that university was the gateway to opportunity, that it would pay for itself and that repayments would be manageable. Instead, many now feel that they signed up at 18 years of age with no financial advice and no lived experience to a 30-year financial commitment where the rules can be changed unilaterally, arbitrarily and without consultation.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Graduates are making massive repayments—9% of their earnings. As he says, they will be paying this debt off for decades, and having to do that is breaking a whole generation. As a society, it is time we had a serious discussion about cancelling student debt, which would provide immediate relief to young people. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should instead fund higher education through progressive taxation?
Jas Athwal
I think the whole system needs to be reformed. Tinkering around the edges is not going to cut it any more; we are looking for a much fairer system.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I have spoken to the students’ unions at York St John University and the University of York, as well as many graduates, who have told me that a student loan does not even cover the cost of living in our city because housing is so expensive—not only does it put people in debt for the future, but it does not even meet the need now. I believe progressive taxation is the way forward, so that the more someone earns, the more they can pay back into the system, to invest in education, which benefits us all.
Jas Athwal
I agree that we need to reform this system and look at other ways of doing it. That is the ethos of my ask today: for the Minister to go away and really think about this. I do not want to look at the whole process in this debate, but I want to ensure the Minister is aware of the feeling in this room that we must look at the whole system.
Let us remember how we got here, because I have been reminded of a bit of history. The Conservative party trebled tuition fees to £9,000 in 2012, and the Liberal Democrats, having pledged to oppose any increase, walked through the Lobby to make it happen. This system was not inevitable; it was legislated for. Let me be clear: I do believe that those who benefit from education should contribute to its cost, but fairly, and those who earn more should repay more, fairly. That principle of fairness needs to be the golden thread going through the whole system.
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
I am on plan 2, which is a dog’s dinner of a system. Like me, is my hon. Friend not surprised that the architects of this Frankenstein’s mess are not even here for the debate? Our generation is picking up the cost of their mess.
Jas Athwal
I agree with my hon. Friend; we must be clear where the blame lies. It is not fair that a system created by one party and enabled by another is now presided over by my own party, who will clear up the mess. The system burdens millions, such as my hon. Friend, with balances they may never clear. It follows the letter of the principle while violating its spirit. Many believe that the plan 2 loans system is predatory, regressive and kills graduates’ ambitions with stressful spiralling interest.
Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)
I have enjoyed the perks of being an elder millennial, graduating in 2004 as a plan 1 student. The retrospective changing of the threshold, burdening plan 2 students with debt, is unbelievable, as is linking interest to the retail price index not the consumer prices index, which the Office for Budget Responsibility has discredited. Does my hon. Friend agree that addressing fundamental fairness means changing those structural factors that came in after people signed up to the agreements?
Jas Athwal
I will later make the point about the structural imbalance that needs to be corrected. This situation is not just stressful for students; it should also concern the Treasury. Under plan 2 loans, graduates repay 9% of income above £28,470 this tax year. From April, that threshold rises to £29,385. Interest accrues from the moment the first payment is made to a university, long before students have graduated.
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
Just a couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a constituent who graduated in 2021 and has already accrued more than £6,000 of interest on her initial debt of £41,000. I was one of the lucky ones: as the first in my low-income family to go to university, I had tuition and maintenance paid. That was a great opportunity and leveller and, without it, I do not think I would be here now. Does the hon. Member agree that students and graduates have been at the mercy of arbitrary decision making for far too long, and that everyone deserves the right to pursue higher education, regardless of their class or generation?
Jas Athwal
I absolutely agree. This is so important, which is why we are here to look at the system.
Interest accrues from the moment the first payment is made, and it is linked to RPI, with the current maximum rate of 6.2%. Here is the stark reality: in 2024-25, plan 2 loans accrued £12.6 billion in interest, while borrowers repaid just £2.8 billion. In a single year, interest added to balances was more than four times the amount repaid. That is not a slogan but official data.
When graduates open their statements and see their balances rising, despite working hard and repaying every month, their anger is not ideological—it is rational. Students finishing university in 2024 entered repayment with an average debt of £53,000. That is the price tag now attached to aspiration. That burden falls unevenly, as those from wealthier families often avoid large maintenance borrowing and high earners quickly clear balances and reduce interest exposure. But the vast majority of middle earners—our nurses, teachers, engineers and small business employees—repay for decades, and most will never clear the balance.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this issue disproportionately affects women and those who have caring responsibilities? I have a constituent who was successfully paying down her student loan. She took a few years off to have children, and when she came back to the employed world, her bill was bigger than when she left university, so the starting point was higher. She knows that she will be paying it off until she retires. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is an unacceptable situation to be in?
Jas Athwal
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. I wholeheartedly agree that the system is rigged against working women who take time out to have children, so we need to make it fairer.
A graduate constituent of mine told me that she was the first woman in her entire lineage to go to university and get a degree, but she feels that that proud moment in her family’s history has been taken away from her by the regret that she has accrued a huge debt. The issue is not an isolated to Ilford South. As we hear from hon. Members across the Chamber, all across the country a whole generation feels bled dry by a system that keeps taking from them.
Another constituent told me that he left university with £64,000 of debt. Four years of repayment later, he now owes more than £99,000. This is not shared sacrifice, but a structural imbalance. We often speak of aspiration, but aspiration cannot thrive under compound interest designed in Whitehall. The repayment threshold sits only a few thousand pounds above the full-time minimum wage. Repayments begin early, just as graduates are finding their feet. People face income tax, national insurance, pension contributions, council tax and rent or, for those who are fortunate enough, a mortgage—and then we add 9%. For many, this does not feel like a loan; it functions as a long-term graduate tax, but without the honesty of calling it one.
From April 2027, the repayment threshold is scheduled to be frozen for three years. Freezing thresholds during wage growth means that more income falls into repayment. It increases lifetime contributions and tightens the squeeze on those who are already stretched. Yes, it improves Treasury forecasts, but is that really the motivation? Fairness is not measured only by spreadsheets. Outstanding student loan balances are projected to reach £500 billion in today’s prices by the mid-2040s.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making such a powerful speech. Does he share my concern that one of the other consequences of these changes might be that fewer young people decide to go to university? That would obviously be to their detriment, but it would also be to the detriment of society in more general terms.
Jas Athwal
I agree, and I will make that point shortly. This is not only a graduate issue, but a fiscal time bomb. In 2024-25, write-offs recorded in Department for Education accounts rose to £310 million, up from £121 million the year before. The longer this system continues without reform, the more unstable it becomes for borrowers and Governments alike, and then where is the ambition? Every pound earned above the threshold attracts a 9% deduction, on top of existing taxes. The marginal deduction rate that many middle earners face is far higher than the headline rate suggests. Perception shapes behaviour. If progression feels like it is punished, and if promotion feels like a heavy deduction rather than a reward, morale suffers.
This generation did what we asked of them—they studied, trained and qualified—but many feel let down and misled. So what must change? Not the principle of contribution, because their education has to be paid for, but the fairness of the design. The Minister and the Government urgently need to reconsider the following, and I hope hon. Friends will add to this list: first, whether freezing thresholds is justified in a cost of living crisis; secondly, whether to raise the threshold to alleviate hardship and make the system fairer; thirdly, whether RPI remains an appropriate benchmark for interest calculations; and fourthly, whether a 9% repayment rate disproportionately affects middle earners and should be reduced.
Perhaps it should be a combination of all of the above, because tinkering at the edges will not suffice. Neither will knee-jerk reactions: some of the proposals I have heard, such as cutting the interest rate without addressing the structural flaws, offers only headlines, not solutions. Those who designed the system cannot now pretend they bear no responsibility for its consequences, when they had 12 years to get it right. Equally, suggesting we cut certain courses, as some have suggested, simply because the graduates on those courses repay less, confuses economic return with social value.
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. On the point about some courses being preferable to others, does he agree that it is vital that children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to the creative industries and are able to pursue careers in those industries if they want to, and that it is shameful to suggest that those courses are somehow worth less than others?
Jas Athwal
I wholeheartedly agree. Some of those suggestions have made me cringe. University enriches our society, expands horizons and fuels innovation, and today’s young people deserve to have the same choices as those who now seek to restrict them. It is our duty to reform a flawed system that is unfairly trapping millions of young people in debt. Student loans were presented as an investment; for too many, they now feel like a sentence.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and he has set out comprehensively the issues that we look to the Government to examine. Does he agree that the Government have begun to take very welcome steps in reforming student finance, in particular the changes to the plan 5 loan system? We are looking for the same consideration when it comes to plan 2 loans.
Jas Athwal
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I agree that the Government need to be applauded for doing a lot of things right, but we are asking them to go further. For many, especially those on plan 2, their loan feels like a sentence—a sentence that lasts 30 years, a sentence that previous generations never faced on this scale, and a sentence that shapes life decisions, from postgraduate study to starting a family.
We cannot build a confident, dynamic economy on graduates’ unrest—once quiet, but now hard to ignore. We cannot speak of opportunity while allowing aspiration to accumulate compound interest. We say that those with the broadest shoulders must bear the greatest burden, so let us ensure that that principle applies here. Graduates are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for fairness and consistency. This House should listen and act now.
Several hon. Members rose—
Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
Order. As Members can see, this is a very popular debate, so there will be a two-minute limit on all Back-Bench contributions.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing the debate. The current student loans regime has transformed halls of residence into a student “Hotel California”, where folks can check out—they can graduate—but can never leave. They can pay exactly what is asked of them month on month, yet end up with a total bill that gets bigger year on year.
It was the prospect of a greater bill burden that fired me up, as a student in 2010, to stand in Parliament Square and oppose some of the changes that were coming through, but the effect of those reforms has been compounded by two key changes on the watches of subsequent Governments. The first is the Conservatives’ unilateral removal of maintenance grants, which forced students to borrow even more to live. Indeed, the proportion of students taking out only a tuition fee loan, and no maintenance loan, is the highest in a decade. That means either that the student population is now skewed towards those who are more privileged, which calls into question its inclusion, or that less well-off students are going without the maintenance support that they need and deserve. Either outcome would be a shameful reality.
The second key change, which the hon. Member for Ilford South highlighted, is the freezing of the repayment threshold—a student stealth tax that will make it even more difficult for students to live going forward. That is why I call on the Government to revisit the freezing of the threshold and to reinstate maintenance grants for students.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for his powerful opening speech and for securing the debate. I declare an interest as a mum of two students who are currently in higher education.
I want to acknowledge the strength of feeling among graduates with plan 2 loans and the material impact that current loan terms and the planned freeze in the repayment threshold are having on them. The generation of graduates with plan 2 loans studied between September 2012 and July 2023. They are the same generation who have found themselves increasingly locked out of the housing market, unable to put down roots in their community, and squeezed by the cost of living and the cost of renting in particular. Plan 2 loans add unfairly to those cost pressures.
If the promise of education is that if you work hard, do well and get a good degree, then that degree will be a passport to increased earnings and a good standard of living, that promise is not being fulfilled for far too many in the plan 2 generation. I believe there is an urgent need to look at the value for money of student loans. We need to do that for the plan 2 generation, but also for the generation of young people who are considering university. We need to recognise that students from the lowest-income backgrounds are most likely to be deterred by the perception that university is not good value for money because of the impact of the loans.
I share concerns about unilateral changes in payment terms; that does not meet the standard of fairness that we would expect from any other lender. I share concerns that loans are linked to a measure of inflation that the Government do not use as the basis for other calculations.
However, in short, the solutions are not straightforward. The Education Committee is currently undertaking work on the funding of higher education institutions, and its headline conclusion is that they are very fragile. The proposals made by the Leader of the Opposition this week are entirely untenable, and I reject in particular her war on arts degrees, which will always have an important place in our education landscape.
Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I declare an interest: I have two children at university who both have student loans.
I am proud to represent part of the city of Chester, home to the University of Chester, which is a fantastic asset to our city and region. Young people are today’s innovators and tomorrow’s entrepreneurs—our future high-skilled workforce, our teachers, doctors and nurses—and the foundations that we set today, and the start that we give them, are an investment in the future of our country and economy. That is why the student finance system matters so much.
Many young people in Chester South and Eddisbury are struggling under the weight of student finance. I cannot go into all the emails I have received, but one young constituent from a low-income family told me that she had no choice but to take out a loan to pursue her dream of working in education. She does not expect to clear that loan in her lifetime, and she says that because of the threshold freeze, she will simply pay more each month without ever making a meaningful dent in it.
By freezing the plan 2 repayment threshold until 2027, the Chancellor has chosen to increase the burden on young graduates at a time when the economic odds are already stacked against them. That is why we need a new deal for young people, as the Conservatives have set out: reducing interest rates on plan 2 loans so that balances never rise faster than RPI, ensuring that students and taxpayers are not burdened by low-value courses, and increasing apprenticeship funding to expand high-quality vocational routes, such as those offered at the excellent Reaseheath college in my constituency. If we are serious about growth, opportunity and intergenerational fairness, we must ensure that the system designed to invest in young people does not instead hold them back.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow and Gateshead East) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this important debate.
The debate is timely, as I have recently been working on a case for my constituent Melissa, who has come to Parliament today to hear the debate. When I posted on social media about Melissa’s case, with her permission, it caught a wave of people in similar situations. I have now been contacted by more than 700 individuals, all with similar horror stories about the level of debt they have on plan 2.
Melissa left university with a debt of £37,000 and has been paying off her loan every month since 2022, yet despite four years of payments, the amount she owes has increased by tens of thousands, to £60,000. Melissa’s case is by no means the worst example that I have received. Another constituent, Lucy, left university with nearly £28,000 to pay back, and her debt now stands at a huge £54,000. Chloe—one of our brightest science, technology, engineering and maths students—attended Newcastle University to study physics, and then went straight into full-time employment, starting to pay off her student loans immediately. Despite that, the amount she owes has increased by £14,000.
Education is a right, not a privilege. It is not okay that we are pricing people out of education. Quite frankly, the amount of interest being charged every year is a scandal and a rip-off. What will the Government do to help to eliminate student debt? Considering the thresholds is all very well, but I think we should just abolish tuition fees altogether, to boost social mobility and benefit society.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for setting the scene. Two minutes—my goodness! How can I get everything into two minutes?
I think of the many graduates who work at Asda— a job they land because there are no full-time entry-level graduate jobs for them. I am aware that student loan repayments are not done in the same way in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the United Kingdom; Northern Ireland borrowers primarily use plan 1, whereas England has a different system. However, cost of living difficulties mean that borrowers find themselves with problems even if they have what once would have been classified as good jobs.
Because of the time limit, I will give only one example: a junior doctor who, despite getting all As at GCSE and A-level, could not get into Queen’s medical school in Belfast, but was accepted by Edinburgh medical school. That meant a compulsory additional degree within the degree, and an extra year. This clever young lady is now home and working in the trust, and she sent me a copy of her payslip, showing her crippling student loan repayment. She also sent me a copy of her student loan debt—and my breath left my body. This year, she will finish her foundation year 2, and she is not guaranteed a position, so she takes all the on-call hours and locum hours and lives her life worried about her patients and about her debt. She is 25 years of age, living in her sister’s spare room, working 70 hours a week, with a debt of £100,000. Something is wrong with this system. I ask the Minister to consider that.
Our student fees are £4,500, plus maintenance. We need to look at this system. It penalises home students and forces young people to leave their local areas for places that do not have free student accommodation, where they have to pay for someone else’s mortgage over the next 26 years of their lives while paying their own mortgage. No working person should begin their financial journey mired in debt because their local university could not take them and they had to move to a new part of the country and pay for life there. We can do better than that. I look to the Minister to make sure that he does.
Several hon. Members rose—
Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
Order. I am going to have to reduce the time limit to one and a half minutes.
Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing the debate, which at its core is about fairness. In my Sheffield Central constituency, which is home to two major universities, I regularly meet with students and graduates, whether in surgeries or through meetings with student officers. One core theme that they have relayed to me is that they feel anxious and frustrated, and they rightly ask why the system is stacked against them.
I will read a few examples that constituents have given me. One said:
“I started university in 2012 and since graduating have had a salary of between £30,000-£40,000 for much of that time. Despite this, since graduating my loan has increased from ~£45,000 to nearly £80,000”.
Another said:
“I borrowed £76,829. I repay £3,700 every year. But my interest rises by £7,000. Paying it off within 30 years is impossible. It makes me wish I hadn’t gone.”
When education makes young people regret participation, something is profoundly wrong.
We are told that the system is progressive because repayments are income contingent, but if we look closer, higher earners clear their debt quickly, escape decades of interest and move on. The thought of such staggering debt will likely put off working-class students from going to university. That is not progressive; it is regressive, and it will entrench inequality rather than reduce it. I say to the Minister: we must cap interest on all student loans at CPI and restore fair repayment thresholds.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for introducing this debate.
I would like to use my limited time to tell the stories of two of my constituents. One of them is Rebecca, a health worker who is an NHS band 6 employee. For those unfamiliar with NHS pay bands, as I am, that is between £38,600 and £46,600 a year. She has raised concerns about the impact that her student loan repayments are having on her finances and day-to-day life. She says:
“It feels like a lifelong debt that’s impossible to reduce…Looking at the bigger picture is even more frustrating. Between 2019 and 2025, almost £18,000 in interest has been added to my loan, despite the fact that I’ve been working and making repayments the entire time. It feels like I’m being penalised for staying in steady employment rather than making real progress on the debt…I worry that this system will discourage people from training for essential professions like healthcare.”
Another constituent, Alexandra, works at Culham Campus, a site for fusion energy research and many other industries. She says that,
“completing a PhD was absolutely necessary to pursue my career in essential scientific research…As they stand, those who choose to embark on a PhD are disadvantaged further by committing to 3-6 years of time in which they will be unable to pay off student loans due to PhD stipends falling under the repayment limit, I am likely to pay significantly more towards my student loan than was originally billed before it is written off purely because as an undergraduate I came from a low income family and I received the full subsistence and fee loans.”
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this important debate.
We have a fundamental question to answer: is our higher education system set up to give young people, regardless of background, a fair chance? In a constituency such as Bournemouth West, part of an area with three universities and tens of thousands of students, I have seen at first hand how multiple changes to higher education funding consistently fall on students from low-income backgrounds—constraining them not by ability but by financial anxiety.
We know that plan 2 loans have interest rates that mean balances balloon, and some students will never pay them back, and that graduates feel that they were mis-sold, but we have not yet discussed the impact that this is having on the job market. It is distorting behaviour, with graduate applicants asking for salaries below the repayment threshold to not trigger deductions. That is not how we should be shaping an ambitious economy in the modern world.
In letters and emails from students, they ask for three things: that there be no further real-terms freezes to the repayment threshold, that interest rates be linked to CPI, and that there be a more progressive pay structure. Young people are calling for a fair and predictable settlement that reflects the contribution that they will make to our economy and society for decades to come. The least we can offer them is that clarity.
If we truly believe that every young person, regardless of background, should be able to pursue higher education, we need to build financial architecture that does not undermine but supports that ambition.
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
I have heard from many young constituents who are frankly pretty despondent right now. They have endured a global pandemic. They are grappling with the cost of living crisis, a housing crisis and difficulties in securing entry-level jobs. On top of that, they carry the incredible burden of large student loans, made ever larger by high interest rates and a frozen repayment threshold, leaving many feeling they will never be free of it. We need to acknowledge that an entire generation of graduates on plan 2 student loans have essentially been mis-sold their loans. One constituent told me about their son who, despite repaying his loan for five years, has seen his balance increased by 33%. How can that possibly be justified?
The cumulative impact of successive changes to the terms and conditions of student loans in England has fundamentally undermined confidence in the system. The threshold has been moved around haphazardly by successive Governments, being regularly frozen, including by the current Government. Many students were told that this was manageable debt, but in reality it has developed into something totally different from the graduate contribution system it was intended to be. The repayment threshold was supposed to rise with earnings. The previous Conservative Government’s decision to freeze it was a needless move to take money away from graduates. It is a stealth tax.
According to the money-saving expert Martin Lewis, the most direct thing that would help all students would be not to freeze the repayment threshold. Will the Minister look at that as a matter of urgency? Student loans also impact the ability to get a mortgage because they are used for affordability calculations. There must be an immediate reversal of the repayment threshold freeze, and RPI should no longer be used to calculate interest.
Juliet Campbell (Broxtowe) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this debate.
The University of Nottingham is on my doorstep, so many graduates who make their home in Beeston and Bramcote in my constituency. One of my constituents said:
“My salary is never going to go up at the same rate as the interest, you have to pay back huge amounts every month to match the interest being charged.”
Another said that they took out a loan of £37,000 and yet,
“since graduating 8 years ago, I have paid back just £600 and accrued £18,000 in interest. Because until a year ago, my salary did not meet the repayment threshold. This means that I currently owe £55,000. Bearing in mind, I have been working the whole time since graduating.”
She said to me, “It is ludicrous,” and I agree.
Students should never end up in a position where their monthly repayments are significantly less than the interest they accrue. The inequalities in the system are stark. Borrowers only repay student loans while they are earning, but the interest will accrue nevertheless. That puts an unfair penalty on those who work part time, take breaks for maternity or are carers. The message from my constituents in Broxtowe is loud and clear: “This simply isn’t fair.” I call upon the Government to make urgent reforms.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
At the start of this debate, there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing as to who is to blame for this problem—was it the Conservatives, or the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition? I do not think that is the point. The point is that there is a problem, and we now have a Government who have the ability to deal with it.
The second point—this word has been used time and again in this debate—is about whether the system is “fair”. I know the Chancellor believes that the arrangements in place are reasonable and fair, and I think that is wrong. It is not fair that people take out loans and then find that the terms of those loans are changed. It is not fair that, as people earn more money, the terms of the loans are changed. No building society would charge someone more for their mortgage if they got a bit richer; they enter into an agreement and the terms are there. The third point is that it is not fair that, in some cases, because of the freezing of thresholds, many people who are on low incomes are now dragged into the system of repayment, and pay up to 9%.
A number of things have been suggested. The first is that thresholds should not be frozen, but should increase with inflation. The second is that interest rates should be clear and linked to CPI. The third is that repayment should be set at a reasonable level of 5%—
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I declare an interest: I have three sons who have huge debts from their time in education. I would be surprised if more than one of them pays off their debt in full, but that would be in line with the roughly one third of all students who fully repay their loans. Does that not tell us on its own that the system is not working? Would any bank be in business if only one third of its customers repaid their loans? We have a system of loans that most people will not be able to repay. Should that not tell us something about the balance not being right?
I want to make a broader point about how we can also improve the system for the benefit of the whole country. We should consider whether those who serve our public services should have their loans repaid by the state while they continue in the service of it. After all, if the justification for repayment of loans is that the individual has benefited financially from their university education, should there not also be an argument that if the state is benefiting from that individual’s education by the service they provide, the state should also bear some responsibility for the repayment? I appreciate that that would be a significant rewiring of the system, but I have no doubt that it would help with recruitment and retention, particularly in the NHS. It may even stem the tide of doctors and nurses leaving these shores to work elsewhere, and it would be a way for us to say, “As a thank you for your public service, we will help repay the loans.”
Of course, as we have heard, the immediate challenge is to end the retrospective moving of the goalposts and the punitive interest rates for people who, do not forget, are trying to save for a home, start a family or even save for retirement. Under this system, that is impossible.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. Fundamentally, I think it is right that graduates contribute to their education. I did so via a plan 1 loan and a subsequent postgraduate loan, too. For all its faults, that system ensured that universities could accommodate record numbers of people like me, who were the first in their family to go to university. But we are now at a point where people who pay an additional 9% of their income above a certain threshold question why the amount seems to only ever increase. The introduction of plan 2 loans and the trebling of tuition fees to £9,000 created a system where those who had to rely on it were essentially paying a graduate tax in all but name, while those who could afford to pay the tuition fees up front were able to avoid that burden altogether.
At the time that the loans were introduced, I argued that a graduate tax would be a much more progressive way of funding university: it would resolve that inherent unfairness of a graduate tax for some but not for all. However, the transition to such a system now would be costly and difficult, and would do nothing for those graduates who now have record amounts of debt. That is why the time is right to have the conversation about debt, interest, repayment thresholds and loan terms. Although tinkering with those things is definitely easier than wholesale replacement, they all come with costs, which have to be part of any conversation. I ask the Minister to seriously consider that now is the time for a genuine, thorough discussion in Government about the need to support graduates in such a position.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for introducing this crucial debate. I want to start by saying, on the record, that I do not agree with tuition fees, and I do not support the decision to raise them. If there is still an MP in this House who voted to bring in tuition fees in the first place, they should be deeply ashamed of themselves for pulling up the drawbridge behind them.
As someone whose entire undergraduate degree cost less than what a current student can expect to pay for a year, it is only right that I advocate for current and future students. Like so many, I have had a number of constituents on plan 2 student loans contact me to say that they have been working ever since they left university, and have consistently made payments to their loan, yet they have not once seen their total loan decrease; in fact, they have increased by substantial amounts. That is happening to so many young people. Many of us have staff in that situation.
Some are calling it a graduate tax, and others are even using that phrase to assert the fairness of this loan system, but that is, frankly, an insult to graduates who are already paying taxes on their income. The terms of the plan 2 student loan make it more comparable to something that a loan shark would offer. It is not a graduate tax, and it is just not fair. As for the decision to freeze the repayment threshold, it is a one-sided breach of contractual terms. We need a more equitable approach to higher education funding overall.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for introducing the debate. This is an issue of intergenerational inequality, of which we should all be ashamed. My university cohort and I graduated without debt. We entered a housing market that was accessible and over time we accumulated assets, property, pensions, savings and security. I served 40 years in the NHS, until that was interrupted by an astonishing election result. Now, the landscape has changed. I see the difference in my own family. My two older children studied under plan 1; their repayment terms were short and less onerous. My youngest fell under plan 2 and she has a huge debt, which is growing despite the fact that she is paying it off.
This debate is about aspiration, which, as my hon. Friend said, simply cannot compete with compound interest. It is about whether young people begin adult life with opportunity, or decades of liability. Let us sort this out. Let us increase the repayment thresholds, ensure that interest does not outpace realistic repayment capacity, explore tax-deductible repayments similar to pensions, and improve transparency so that students fully understand what they are signing up for. Education should expand opportunity, not entrench intergenerational unfairness. That is a reality we must confront, and a duty we must uphold, as we deal with this utterly iniquitous system.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this debate. I was a beneficiary of free higher education under Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan, but I must begin with the stark reality that today’s graduates face. The average debt on graduation in England is around £53,000, and many leave owing £70,000, £80,000 or even £100,000, with postgraduate borrowing included. That is a mortgage-sized burden placed on young adults before they have saved a deposit, started a family or built financial security, and even before repayment thresholds and interest are factored in.
We were warned: plan 2 and plan 5 are not just loans, but lifetime surcharges, and that is because of cumulative political choices: the introduction of fees in 1998, variable fees in 2004, the loan book sale, the high-fee and high-interest plan 2, and now plan 5’s lower thresholds. Higher education is a public good, yet we have built a system that assumes that every degree guarantees high earnings and prices them accordingly, despite the fact that many do not enjoy those earnings. We must rethink, and be honest that a system built over 28 years is now failing.
Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
I am pleased to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this debate.
The system just is not fair; it does not make any sense and it does not set people up well for life. Realistically, a person makes a decision about whether to go to university when they are about 16 or 17 years old. We would not let banks lend money to 16 and 17-year-olds on these terms—we would think it wrong; people cannot enter into those contracts until they are 18—but when someone makes the decision to apply to university, unless they are from a very wealthy background, they are essentially signing up to a huge amount of ongoing debt.
Young people quite rightly aspire to own homes, start families and have the same sort of life and pension savings that the generations before them had, and I do not see how that is unreasonable. Yet we are allowing a system to persist in which many of them are paying 9% of their income, on top of the tax they already pay, spiralling house prices and the incredibly high requirements for childcare, if they wish to have a family. Of course, Labour has rightly helped with many of those problems, but the student loans system remains a barrier to opportunity.
We should have great aspirations for our young people. Education is a right, and should not be a privilege, but those privileged enough to have parents who can pay for their fees up front have a massive benefit over everyone else. That is wrong and it needs to change.
Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)
It is an uncomfortable truth that England now has the most expensive public university system in the world. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has told us that, while the taxpayer underwrites 45% of its cost, students and graduates cover 55%, which represents a profound shift in how we fund higher education in this country. A formative moment for me and for many others was watching the Liberal Democrats entering into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 and not abolishing tuition fees, but in fact trebling them. We were told that that was progressive, but to a generation of young people, it felt like a gross betrayal.
It is fair to say that graduates have a graduate premium, with earnings potentially a third higher than for non-graduates, but averages conceal as much as they reveal. The IFS has shown that those in the middle earnings distribution repay the highest share of their lifetime earnings. As hon. Members have said, many people have no prospect of paying off their loans at all. That is not a progressive system, particularly when we are asking them to think about saving for a home, starting a family and contributing to society.
We need to think about the public good that higher education is, and the fantastic contribution that graduates make to our society and economy. We need to look again at the structure and the thresholds, particularly the threshold freezes, and ask whether those in the middle are carrying too much of the burden and whether the balance between the contributions of the taxpayer and of the graduate has drifted too far.
Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for raising such an important debate. I declare an interest as the mother of a daughter who still has a student loan.
I was the first in my family, male or female, to go to university, and when I went, it was an opportunity confined to just one in 20 young people. Today, that number is more like one in two. The design of the loans and repayment plans are the creation of the previous Government, and is one of many legacy issues that have been left for this Government to clean up. Students who are alarmed at having made payments and yet finding themselves even further in debt, are victims of the Conservative’s appalling management of the economy, which led to a RPI well above 12% in 2022. Opposition claims that they would now cap rates ring hollow, given they did little about them when they were in power.
As this Government get the economy and inflation under control, the interest rate will come down. It is right that the Government keep the impact of loans on students and young people under review. Students should not feel the burden of their families’ financial position. Wealth inequalities in society should not lead to inequalities of outcomes for students.
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing the debate.
Young people who work hard, gain qualifications and enter the workforce deserve a system that supports their ability to build secure and fulfilling lives. One constituent recently told me about the impact of the system on his family’s future. He is a young, working professional raising a daughter with his wife, and they are doing everything they can to provide security and opportunity for her. This year alone he has paid £852 towards his loan, but during the same period more than £2,300 of interest was added—nearly three times what he managed to pay down. He began university nearly a decade ago and the balance at the start of his repayment was £54,683. Today, despite working and making regular loan repayments, that balance has grown to £76,040—an almost 40% rise over the last 10 years. For a young parent trying to build a stable foundation for their child, the situation feels like running up a down escalator: always working hard, but never getting closer to the top.
Will the Minister think not just about incremental changes to the system, but fundamental, broad reform? That could include a graduate tax and, as the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) said, thinking about a balance between the taxpayer and the graduate repayments. I know the Minister will think about those carefully and I look forward to hearing his response.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing the debate. One Salford graduate who borrowed just over £41,000 graduated in 2018 owing more than £47,000 because interest had accrued while they were still studying. After eight years of repayments and nearly £20,000 paid back, their balance is now significantly higher than it was when they graduated.
Another graduate told me they owed £59,000 in 2020; that has now increased to more than £75,000, despite steady monthly repayments. That is not how people understand a loan to function and many borrowers were never properly warned that Governments could retrospectively alter key repayment terms.
The requests from campaigners are reasonable: reverse the repayment threshold freeze, tackle the unfair interest rate metrics and protect against retrospective changes. Those are not radical requests; they restore trust. We must understand that the marketisation of higher education has failed. We must reform the loans system, but we must ensure that our ultimate goal is more ambitious. We should abolish tuition fees and replace them with a sustainable, publicly funded model for higher education and university research, providing long-term stability for institutions and genuine opportunities for students, regardless of background.
Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing the debate.
The system that the current Government have inherited, after years of failure on the issue by the previous Government, is complex, ineffective and simply unfair. What was supposed to be a system that enabled fair contributions to the cost of higher education has become a long-term financial burden that is quietly eroding living standards. Freezing the repayment threshold for plan 2 borrowers has quietly increased the real cost of payments year after year, pulling more people into making repayments and extending the burden far beyond what was expected.
Changing the terms of a repayment after a contract has been agreed is fundamentally wrong. Using RPI as the measure to calculate interest—a measure the OBR says should be discouraged, as it is not a good measure of inflation—is completely wrong. Linking rates to CPI rather than RPI and removing the additional 3% margin could restore credibility and better reflect economic reality. Student loans were supposed to be an income-contingent contribution towards higher education, not a perpetual liability. Today’s graduates are being asked to accept not only a system that we did not face ourselves, but one in which the terms can be changed after they have been signed up to.
This debate is not about walking away from supporting our universities. It is about building a country where talent thrives and choosing to become a nurse or a teacher is not quietly penalised by decades of repayments. It is about restoring balance. It is about designing a system that is progressive and sustainable—one that protects universities, supports students and reflects our values as a country. It is about fairness.
Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I want to thank my constituents Matthew, Courtenay, Frances, Giovanni and Veronica, who have contacted me recently about this, and parents such as Joanne who are worried about generational inequality.
There are, to my mind, two problems with the plan 2 loan system. The first is psychological. It is incredibly depressing for people to see the amount that they owe continually increasing, despite making payments that can constitute hundreds of pounds each month. The second, more important one is financial. Under plan 1, as my earnings grew, I was making increasingly large monthly payments towards my student loan, but I knew that this was a temporary situation and I would eventually be debt-free. For those on plan 2 loans, it is not anything like so temporary, primarily due to the size of the principal and the higher rate of interest it attracts.
That has a real impact, because the economic circumstances students are graduating into today are a world apart from those of their predecessors, who enjoyed free higher education. Today’s graduates face higher housing costs and a reduced graduate wage premium compared with previous generations. Those factors combine with high monthly repayments to reduce disposable income and leave young workers in stasis, living at home with their parents or in shared rental accommodation, perhaps partnered and wanting to start a family but unable to afford to do so.
We have inherited this broken system, but we have the opportunity and responsibility to fix it, making changes to increase the monthly disposable income of graduates by raising the repayment threshold or staggering the percentage of income above the threshold that is repaid, and looking at the interest rate paid falling at a minimum to RPI or, ideally, to CPI, given that the Government are phasing out RPI.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
The ambition for two thirds of young people to benefit from higher level education, where it is an apprenticeship, technical or academic qualifications, is about ensuring that young people have opportunities. Of course we want a fair system of student finance, but the answer should not be taking away choices. The Conservative plans to cut 100,000 university places—to decide what students are and are not allowed to study—is wrong, and it is being proposed by many who benefited from going to university.
The coalition Government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats tripled university fees and introduced plan 2 loans. I have been contacted by many graduates such as Adam, who told me he borrowed £37,500 and has repaid over £20,000, but because of interest now owes over £1,000 more than he borrowed in the first place. I am pleased that the Education Secretary has said she will look at these loans.
I am also pleased that, unlike the Conservatives, who made and dropped pledges on apprenticeships and presided over a reduction in their number by almost a third in the decade before the last election, this Government are investing £725 million to help deliver 50,000 more quality apprenticeships. For the most disadvantaged students who want to go to university, this Government are reintroducing maintenance grants, enabling opportunity and choice, not cutting them off and telling 100,000 students that they cannot have the choices that were open to us.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I am so proud to have the University of Nottingham campus in my constituency. I believe that higher education in the UK is one of our greatest assets and also one of our greatest exports, and we must remember that, despite all the concerns about the student loan system.
The student loan system is not a good system. It is a complete mess, and it risks undermining public trust in these institutions. It will not surprise Members that I have been contacted by numerous graduates about this issue, who have made some fantastic points about not just interest rates but the impact on women, the impact on social mobility and the psychological impact.
I want to leave with the Minister the three questions most commonly asked in my inbox. First, how can successive Governments justify changing repayment thresholds and interest structures when individuals took out loans under materially different expectations? That does not happen with commercial loans. Secondly, if the majority of plan 2 borrowers are projected never to clear their balance, what is the policy rationale for maintaining interest rates above inflation or Government borrowing costs? Finally, what assessment has been made of the impact of current student loan terms on home ownership, pensions and having children, and how on earth does that impact align with our goals on economic growth?
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
As has been said, this is an issue of generational unfairness. My wife and I had plan 1 loans. At that stage, in our early 30s, having paid off our loan, we felt we could start career progression, work our way up the housing ladder and have a family. However, what I have seen in my postbag is correspondence from constituents across Bexleyheath and Crayford who do not feel that that is the case for them and feel that the system now works against them.
If we had time, I would read out the case studies of Jessica, James, Gurkamal and Stuart, and also the comments from parents, such as Adebimpe, Emma and Nicola, outlining the experiences of their children, whose loans are growing and who, unlike those of us who had plan 1 loans, are having to pay huge amounts in interest, rather than paying off the loan itself.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this debate. I echo what he said about the key things that we need to hear from the Minister today: about the level of interest, the thresholds and how we can resolve the 9% repayment rates, and about how we can make the system closer to what I experienced and fairer for those studying today, those considering studying or those who have just been through the system.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair today, Ms Lewell, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) on securing this debate.
As we have heard, there are many graduates in this country who make loan payments every month and yet they see their loan balances grow. They are young professionals whose loan statements bear no resemblance to the deal they thought they were signing up to. At the same time, there are students who cannot afford to eat and university finances are precarious across the sector. The systems feel broken, so this debate really matters, and those listening deserve a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong and a credible path forward. Let me try to give both.
When the plan 2 system was designed, graduates were promised something specific: that they would repay only when earning above a certain threshold, that the threshold would rise with earnings, and that whatever remained after 30 years would be written off—a mechanism to share the cost of higher education between the individual and the state. A higher interest rate for higher earners was a deliberate feature—a progressive measure. Those graduates earning the most would contribute more, to make the system sustainable for those who could not. For many graduates at the time, that deal, however imperfect, felt manageable.
However, there is a problem: successive Governments have treated those promises as suggestions. In 2016, the threshold was frozen when it was supposed to rise, not because the economy required that, but because it was a convenient way to extract more from graduates without the political difficulty of imposing a tax rise. The threshold jumped significantly in 2022, but it was then frozen again, then raised again. Now the Government have given in to the same temptation, budgeting to freeze it for three more years. What graduates have experienced is not a coherent system operating as originally designed, but a set of rules that keep getting rewritten by whoever needs to balance the books that year. That is a core injustice.
To that political failure, though, we must add an economic failure. In the early years of this decade, inflation ran at levels that few foresaw when the system was designed in 2012. RPI, the basis for the interest rate, exceeded 13%. There was a cap on interest rates during that period, which in principle was welcome, but it was implemented too late, and the cap was set too high to make a meaningful difference for most borrowers. Meanwhile, graduates’ starting salaries barely moved in real terms. Interest-linked to a discredited inflation measure running hot, while earnings stood still—that combination has been toxic and the system had no mechanism to correct it.
Although plan 2 graduates suffered from the accumulation of damage caused by those political and economic circumstances, the last Government introduced plan 5. Plan 5 graduates face a lower repayment threshold and a 40-year repayment period before write-off—terms that in many respects are harder than those faced by their predecessors. I hope we do not lose sight of the plan 2 or plan 5 cohort in this debate, because any serious reform of the system must address both.
Before I move on to what can be done about loan repayments, I want to say something briefly about students who are struggling right now. The abolition of maintenance grants after the coalition ended in 2015 loaded the highest debt on to the students least able to bear it. Those from the poorest backgrounds now graduate with significantly more debt, not from their fees but from the additional maintenance borrowing. The level of support has fallen 10% in real terms from its peak. Students skip meals, work hours that damage their studies, and are unable to participate fully in the education that they are notionally receiving. The Government have reintroduced £1,000 grants for maintenance for certain subjects, but the full reintroduction of meaningful maintenance grants for the most disadvantaged students must be a priority.
The most urgent action on repayments requires no review, but a decision: reverse the threshold freeze over the next three years and tie it to earnings, as graduates were originally promised. I hope the Minister can give graduates that commitment today.
For the structural reform that the system genuinely needs, we need to go beyond any single parameter. We need to design interest and repayment structures that are genuinely progressive across the income distribution, including by ditching the discredited link to RPI. We must build a system that also works for people studying flexibly and later in life, not just for 18-year-olds on three or four-year degrees. We are seeing more move to modular courses, so the system needs to be able to cater for that.
Structural reform is needed, which is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a cross-party royal commission on graduate finance reform. I anticipate that some will see that as a delay, but I do not think it is. We need action on the threshold action now, but the commission needs to address a different, harder question: how do we build a system that future Governments cannot quietly dismantle the moment that fiscal pressure mounts? Every change made retrospectively to the terms has broken a promise to people who made life decisions based on them. Cross-party consensus with independent oversight of key parameters is the only protection against that happening again.
I would like to directly address the suggestion made explicitly by the official Opposition that the answer to fiscal pressure in the student finance system is to have drastically fewer students, and to cut courses, close departments and focus support on degrees whose graduates earn enough to repay quickly. That gets the diagnosis backwards. The graduate earnings premium has declined in Britian, not because we have too many graduates but because we have too few skilled jobs. Many of our peers in the OECD have expanded graduate numbers while maintaining or even raising the earnings premium. We should be asking why those countries have generated skilled professional jobs in a way that Britain has failed to do.
Cutting student numbers accepts that failure as permanent, but that is a counsel of despair. It also fails on its own terms. Setting aside the inherent value of the creative arts—many have made that point—that sector contributes enormously to the economy and enriches all our lives. Arts and humanities courses are also cheaper to deliver, and help to support expensive, lab-based science, technology, engineering and mathematics provision. Cutting 100,000 arts places would not simply reduce the loan book; it would undermine the financial model of the very STEM courses that the Conservatives claim to prioritise.
Mr Charters
Before the hon. Gentleman concludes, does he agree that the architects of plan 2 need to say one simple word—sorry?
Ian Sollom
I am not personally an architect of plan 2, but the former leader of my party did say sorry, and my party was appropriately punished at the 2015 general election.
The decline in the graduate earnings premium is, at its root, a story about economic underperformance, and that points towards the solution. Universities are not simply places that people go to acquire qualifications; they are also research engines, regional anchors, training grounds for public services and drivers of the innovation that creates the skilled employment that graduates need. The answer to graduates being squeezed is not fewer graduates; it is more skilled jobs generated by the research, commercialisation and civic investment that universities are well positioned to deliver. We face a choice: managed decline, fewer students, fewer courses, talent lost and regions left behind; or transformation—treating universities like the national assets that they are. Graduates and the country deserve better. I hope that the Minister can signal in his response that the Government are making a start on that.
Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this important debate and highlighting one of the major challenges facing many young people in this country today: student loan repayments. Despite my youthful looks, I can clarify that I am on the last year of plan 1 loans, so this issue does not directly affect me. I have many contemporaries in that situation, though, and I think I understand it well.
When growing numbers of graduates are leaving university with mountains of debt and graduate recruitment is at a record low, there is an urgent need to address a system that is failing graduates. The hon. Member for Ilford South asked for broad agreement on that point. Although I did not agree with everything in his remarks, I think he has broad support across the House that the system as currently designed is not working. This issue affects a huge proportion of young people, given that over 50% of them now go to university. Combine that with a 30-year lifespan, and it becomes a generational problem.
Perhaps by coincidence, rather than design, this debate coincides with the announcement made by His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition of a new deal for young people. I acknowledge that it is partly responsive, but it has helped to bring the issue to the top of the news agenda. This debate could not be timelier. For young people, particularly those on plan 2 loans, there is not a moment to lose.
Sarah Russell
The hon. Gentleman has referred to plan 2 loans but plan 3 loans were also brought in by his Government. Plan 3 loans are for those with postgraduate qualifications—people who are definitely making an economic contribution to our society—and now kick in from when they earn £21,000. Does he agree that that was the wrong thing for his Government to do?
Jack Rankin
I do not want to talk about each plan individually, but this does need to be looked at in the round, as the hon. Lady is quite right to say.
Returning to the hon. Member for Ilford South, I am glad that he recognised—which some of his colleagues did not—that the beneficiaries of student loans should be asked to contribute. He called for fairness. I agree with him that, as it stands, the balance is not quite right. To my mind—the hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) spoke to this—the main issue that we have seen is the breach of the promise on thresholds being frozen and on interest rates being increased. I acknowledge that we did that in government, but it has happened most recently in the recent Budgets. That is morally indefensible.
The hon. Members for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who I do not think are in their places anymore, made similar contributions from a left-wing point of view. I gently suggest that the mechanisms for mass debt cancellations, or even more, what they call “progressive taxation”, is not where we need to be. I am afraid I consider that to be the politics of the magic money tree. When we look at what is happening, one of the things that graduates are upset about is the unreasonable marginal rates of tax that they face as graduates when the student loan is included. More so-called “progressive” marginal rates of income tax would be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I am aware that many a Conservative ex-Minister has stood at the shadow Dispatch Box and criticised the Government for things they themselves were doing in the recent past, so I say this with some self-awareness, but I say to the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) that the Liberal Democrats have to be careful on this issue—the faces on the Government Benches when the Liberal Democrats made some of their remarks were quite the picture.
The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who I believe is the Chair of the Education Committee, made a fair point about the balance in education between economic outcomes and the broader social good of education. I agree with her that the case for education is broader than just economic, but I suggest that there is a balance. We have to be careful about whether it is progressive to send working-class children on university courses that will laden them with debt, but not provide them with the economic outcomes that they might need. There is a balance there to tread.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) talked about the nuance here, between the oppressive interest rates and the 30-year repayment threshold.
Kevin Bonavia
The hon. Member made the point about working-class people thinking about whether to go to university and be loaded with debt. Why should they have that worry when people who have far more family income do not have to make that choice?
Jack Rankin
I am not sure that I recognise that statement. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I was not born in the parliamentary seat of Windsor. I grew up in Ashton-under-Lyne and was the kind of child the hon. Member probably has in mind. My passion at school was history but I did maths and physics at university. That was partly an economic choice that gave me opportunities that my parents and people I went to school with could not have dreamed of. That was a sensible decision I made for me and my family. Dismissing that as a relevant factor is not progressive.
Natasha Irons
On that point about making an economic choice, we are talking about the creative industries, which are worth hundreds of billions of pounds to our economy. Ensuring we have a diverse voice and qualified people in those jobs and having access to those skills is really important. I was a working-class child who ended up working at Channel 4 because of my degree. We should not ask working-class children to make those distinctions so early on in their careers; we should give them the opportunity to experience those careers as they move forward.
Jack Rankin
I agree, but would gently say that we want to ensure that people take the highest-quality creative courses imaginable, which we can honestly say will have economic benefits for them. That is the nuance and balance.
Because of the time, I will move on to my substantive remarks, though hon. Members having two minutes and 90 seconds to contribute does not do justice to the strength of feeling across the House. There is obviously broad unhappiness from those of all political colours and world views, and I wonder whether more time could be found to debate the matter on the Floor of the House.
The measures announced by the Chancellor in the autumn Budget are the most punitive yet for threshold and interest freezes. The freezing of repayment thresholds from April 2027 will cost the average graduate a further £300 a year by 2030, in an environment where rents are through the roof, job opportunities are few and the tax burden is at an all-time high. I gently say to the Minister that although we do have to balance the system so it is fiscally sustainable, this was done not to pay for education but to balance the books more broadly, which is unfair.
As I acknowledged earlier, it is unfair to change the rules post the fact for students who entered into the loan system in good faith when they were 18. Many graduates regard that as the behaviour of a loan shark rather than what they want to see from Government.
This week the Conservative party announced a new deal for young people, which rests on three pillars. The first is to reform the unfair student loans system. We would abolish real interest on plan 2 loans, ensuring that balances never rise faster than inflation. That responds to many of the criticisms in this debate.
The second pillar is more controversial. The fact is that university is not for everyone, nor should it be. One of the best ways to escape the debt pile is to avoid it. A university degree in today’s economy no longer guarantees work, sadly evidenced by the 700,000 graduates currently on benefits. That is why we would lift the funding cap for apprenticeships from 18 to 21-year-olds.
The third pillar is that we would make work pay through our new jobs bonus, where the first £5,000 of national insurance paid by any British citizen starting their first job would be placed in a personal savings account in their name. That money could go towards a deposit, starting a business or building a family.
Together with our plan to scrap stamp duty, that will help young people achieve home ownership and financial independence. Taken together, it represents the most ambitious policy package for young people in years and would re-enfranchise the lost generation. Fixing the voting system should be a priority for this Government. It is about fairness, repairing the intergenerational compact and ensuring that young people who play by the rules are rewarded for their aspiration and not taxed on it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing today’s important debate on student loan repayments.
I would like to take a moment to collectively celebrate higher education and the transformational impact it can have for so many young people. We are right now in the peak UCAS application season. Although there are debates in this place about the merits and limitations of the current student finance system, I would not want any of these debates to put off those who have talents that university can accelerate and amplify. I acknowledge the interest shown in this debate on an issue that the Government will be looking at—I want to be clear about that up front. I recognise that many Members wanted to contribute, share personal stories and extend the arguments, but, because of time limits, we have not been able to hear the full breadth of the debate today. However, I doubt this will be the last time that Parliament considers this. The Minister for Skills in the other place, Baroness Smith, and I are alert to the issues.
I want to start by establishing some facts about the history of the plan 2 student loan system.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
As a plan 2 graduate myself, before the Minister proceeds will he put on the record an acceptance that, with the misstep on the tuition fee repayment level, the cat is out of the bag? We need to deal with it in this Parliament. I urge him to reject the tedious, time-wasting suggestions from the Lib Dems and get on and deal with it with Labour values.
Josh MacAlister
I can confirm, as the Secretary of State for Education said earlier this week, this is an issue that we will, of course, look at. The plan 2 system was introduced in 2012 by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in coalition. At the time, my party raised concerns about the design of that student loan package. When it was introduced, the threshold for repayment was only £21,000. Having said they would increase the threshold, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats then froze it. They froze it in 2012, its first year; they froze it in 2013, in 2014 and in 2015: four years of Liberal Democrat and Conservative freezes to thresholds. The Conservatives then froze it in 2016. They froze it in 2017 and then again in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. In total, there was a decade’s worth of freezes by parties who designed the model that they now stand here criticising. There is one phrase for that: crocodile tears.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
The Minister talks about the history of the student loan, and it is helpful for us all to understand that, but at the moment the students on plan 2 face a freeze—the very thing, along with previous Governments, that the Minister is criticising. It seems bizarre that he is criticising something on the one hand when he has taken action to do the same thing himself.
Josh MacAlister
That is a very timely intervention, because when we were elected we recognised the pressures and acted. In this Parliament, the Government are lifting the plan 2 repayment threshold to £29,385, ending a four-year freeze. We have acted to ensure that the threshold rises to above average graduate salaries, because that was the right thing to do, despite the fiscal pressures we faced. Due to the enormous pressures on budgets and the need for fairness across the education system, especially in further education, and to support the long-term sustainability of the student loan system, we announced at Budget 2025 that the Government will freeze plans for repayment thresholds at £29,385 for three years from April 2027. I note that, even with that freeze, a borrower earning £30,000 will repay around £4 a month and the average plan 2 borrower will repay about £8 more a month.
The freeze will generate £5.9 billion—money that this Government are investing back into young people. We are making improvements to the education system, and the threshold freeze contributes to that. The improvements are happening both in higher education and in the wider skills landscape. We will be investing £1.2 billion more in skills training per year by 2028-29, ensuring that we develop and nurture the skills that many young people who do not go to university need for the future. We are supporting colleges, apprenticeships and technical training, areas that have too long been neglected by other parties, with record funding. I see the benefits of much of that in my constituency, where many young people choose to pursue education through vocational and technical routes. We are setting up technical excellence colleges, ripping out the red tape from the apprenticeship system, and ensuring that more foundation apprenticeships get young people into trades and careers that give them a brighter future.
Politics is about choices. When a Government come in and all public services are in a mess, they have to work through their priorities. Just this week, we have announced generational changes to the special educational needs system. Just today, the Government are announcing major changes to ensure that people can see timely justice in the courts. We are also making changes to improve the student finance system. First, from January 2027, the lifelong learning entitlement will enable learners to use student loans more flexibly than ever before. Secondly, from the 2028-29 academic year, we will introduce targeted, means-tested grants, which, again, were scrapped by the previous Government. Thirdly, to support students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, we are future-proofing our maintenance loan offer, with loans for living costs increasing in line with forecast inflation every academic year.
This Government recognise the strength of feeling on the student loan system, particularly plan 2, and we will always look at issues that are important to the public. We will continue to keep this system under review.
Sarah Russell
The Minister has spoken very well about plan 2, and we are grateful that he will be looking at it, but so far as I can tell, plan 3 thresholds have remained frozen for postgrads at £21,000 since their inception. That is deeply unjust. Will he commit to looking at plan 3 as well as plan 2?
Josh MacAlister
As the Secretary of State said earlier this week, we will look at these issues.
Across the board, we are acting as a Government to support people with the cost of living: investing in free childcare, freezing rail fares, cutting energy bills—there is welcome news on that today—and introducing measures on rights at work and protections for renters. We understand the pressures facing young professionals and young graduates. As the Secretary of State has made very clear, we will of course look at this system in the round and at how it can be improved. I thank hon. Members for their contributions to the debate.
Jas Athwal
I thank hon. Members for taking part in the debate. I will add just one point, which is that IFS calculations suggest that a graduate would need to earn £63,000 a year just to keep a £50,000 loan from growing. That is an astronomical figure just to stop the interest from growing. All I would say to the Minister is that being in government gives us the ability to fix what is wrong. The graduate loan system is not working, so my humble request is that we please fix it.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered student loan repayment plans.
Diesel Vehicles: Defeat Devices
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of defeat devices in diesel vehicles.
It is a true pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
It was over a decade ago that the automotive industry, and indeed the world, was rocked by dieselgate, the Volkswagen emissions scandal. The public were horrified to learn about how the trusted German car giant Volkswagen—the one that gave us the “Herbie” kids film franchise and those iconic circular badges that were so beloved of the Beastie Boys—had knowingly faked vehicle emissions tests via defeat devices. Those devices are software designed to alter a vehicle’s performance, falsify results and limit emissions during the regulatory testing period, only to switch to their true polluting selves when they are driven on open roads.
VW’s range of diesel compact cars had been marketed as a green alternative to petrol, but it was found that it had been knowingly cooking the books to the point that the US Environmental Protection Agency found VW’s top people guilty of conspiracy to defraud customers. Confidence was shattered, share prices nosedived, reputational damage was done, vehicles were recalled, fines were paid, heads rolled at the managerial level, and the once-encouraged diesel became discredited—its fate in London was finally sealed by the ultra low emission zone.
We were assured that lessons would be learned, yet despite the outlawing of defeat devices, the problem seems to be wider than originally thought. “Dieselgate 2: The Sequel” is proceeding very slowly through the courts. I think there are several cases. Multiple models and manufacturers are accused of the same thing: spewing out dangerous and excessive emissions due to cheat technology. Companies have been knowingly deceiving drivers. It feels a bit like match fixing to those of us of a certain age—Bruce Grobbelaar comes to mind. Consumers have been conned once again into believing that they were driving greener, cleaner diesel cars. Results have been rigged. It feels almost as if I cannot go on the internet now without some sort of pop-up advert rearing its head—“Have you driven a Mercedes, a Ford, a Nissan, a Renault, a Citroën or a Peugeot between X and Y years? If so, click here to see how much compensation you could get.” It is all a little bit like ambulance chasing, is it not?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for bringing us this debate. She is right to say that this does not just happen in England; it happens across all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Vehicles registered in Northern Ireland in 2015 were among those fitted with illegal software during the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Enforcement action uncovered diesel lorries operating in Northern Ireland with illegal emissions-cheating hardware deliberately disabling pollution controls. For 17 years, our MOT system in Northern Ireland failed to test diesel emissions properly, allowing such vehicles to operate undetected for too long while damaging air quality and undermining trust in regulations. Does the hon. Lady agree that more must be done to close regulatory gaps, strengthen enforcement and ensure that defeat devices are fully eliminated from all our roads throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Dr Huq
The hon. Gentleman makes such an excellent point as he always does. It is an honour to be intervened on by him. As he said, this was done with intent all over the British Isles, in all our nations. He mentioned the VW scandal. As I say, there could be worse round the corner. Despite the outlawing of these defeat devices, VW could just be the tip of a very murky iceberg. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, this is not just about the men in white coats in the laboratory getting their technical results. This is not a fringe issue: it affects all our constituents and has real life consequences. Air pollution is one of our most pressing environmental challenges. Noxious nitrogen oxide emissions can cause respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease and childhood asthma—even premature deaths, which have been quantified.
In London, the city where we are now and where I am an MP, the devastating human impact was tragically illustrated by the desperately sad case of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah: dead at just nine years old. Hers was the first ever case in which the cause of death on the certificate was “pollution”. The family had lived by the south circular; the north circular is in my seat. Ella’s mum, Rosamund, has been such a tireless campaigner in pushing for Ella’s law. Mums for Lungs has also done great work, while Parent Power had a breakfast event this morning on the other side of the building.
Clean air is not a “nice to have”, but an essential. We would not force a kid to drink dirty water, yet we expect them to breathe toxic air. Sadiq Khan’s ultra low emission zone in this city has helped to clean London of dirty diesel, but we know that children in vulnerable communities are the most susceptible.
These cars were bought in good faith. Remember Gordon Brown’s 2001 Budget: in those days, buying a diesel vehicle was incentivised. It was seen as environmentally superior to petrol because of the miles per gallon; in those days, people were not looking at NOx, but more at carbon dioxide. In that year’s Budget, I think, the road tax—and certain things for company fleets—actually encouraged diesel.
The VW scandal was a genuine scandal, just like the others I have seen since I have been here such as the contaminated blood and Post Office scandals. In its aftermath, the market share of diesels in this country has fallen from 50% in 2014 to just 5% now. But the bigger dieselgate 2 is on the horizon. If defeat devices have dishonestly been fitted to vehicles and emitted pollutants at levels way beyond what is legal and what consumers were led to believe, that leaves huge holes in Government enforcement and regulatory credibility. This will have been poisoning people.
I have a range of questions for the Minister. Although these vehicles are not being sold new any more, figures from Mums for Lungs show that 7.5 million diesel cars—a quarter of all UK cars—are still on our roads. They are responsible for 30% of total NOx emissions. There are also the vans, buses, the HGVS—if we add all those up, we see that action must occur.
In autumn 2024, the Department for Transport confirmed that it is investigating the possible use of defeat device trickery by several manufacturers. Rather than delve into the lengthy legal proceedings today, I want to raise questions about that Government inquiry, which is at best sketchy and is bound up in public health and consumer protection. It all seems to be shrouded in secrecy. There is the prospect, here, of illegally high emissions and asthma being in the equation, so every moment the results are delayed puts more children’s lungs at risk. At a time when everyone wants growth, Mums for Lungs has calculated that the UK economy is losing: action on dieselgate is expected to cost our economy £36 billion in the next 14 years. There are many reasons why we should address this issue.
I am asking the Minister—my good, hon. Friend—to step up a gear. The sheer number of potential claimants in dieselgate 2—1.8 million cars, potentially—dwarfs the settlement that eventually came out of VWgate; that 2022 settlement compensated only 91,000 consumers. This latest issue affects every constituency in the nation—including yours, Ms Lewell.
I have some questions: what is the status of the Department’s investigation? What is the timeline for its commencement? Where is it now? When will it conclude? What teeth does it have—i.e. what are the enforcement powers that the Department is prepared to deploy in cases of non-compliance? The Environment Act 2021 strengthened the Government’s ability to require manufacturers to recall vehicles where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they do not meet applicable environmental standards. Is the Department prepared to use those powers when appropriate? Where does the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency fit into that process? What happens to vehicles currently on UK roads if they are found to be emitting unlawfully high levels of pollutants? Will the Government consider requiring their temporary suspension from use until they are brought into compliance? Could they have a little bit of tinkering and be okay?
According to one report from an international climate think-tank, excess emissions may already lead to 16,000 premature deaths in the UK and 30,000 new cases of childhood asthma. Overnight, Mums for Lungs sent me a whole load of new figures that I have not entirely processed, but which I can pass on to the Minister. If manufacturers are found to have breached the rules, who bears the financial burden of remedial action? Surely not the consumers who bought these vehicles in good faith. They thought that they were doing the right thing and believed that they were compliant. How do the Government intend to safeguard public health in the interim?
In 2016, the Tory Government launched an inquiry into the use of defeat devices by VW, but ultimately, they did not prosecute. The Transport Committee at the time expressed concerns about the Department for Transport’s “ambivalence” towards VW’s use of defeat devices. It described the Department as being
“too slow to assess the use of its powers”.
In other words, it was asleep at the wheel. This Minister is different from that former Minister, and I am sure that he will not repeat the mistakes of the last Tory Government.
There is now a second chance. The DFT should clearly prioritise the interests of the public and consumers in its current investigation. A decade after we were duped over diesel in the first emissions scandal, the public should not be left wondering whether enforcement powers will be used if wrongdoing is found. Court proceedings can take forever, but we must have assurances of urgency, transparency and consequence in the Government’s investigation, which is within their control.
Communities deserve clean air and consumers deserve honesty and protection. I am no Jeremy Clarkson. I cycle more than I drive, but I do both, and I take public transport every weekday. I find that it is difficult to know what is best and it can be bewildering—what is up or down and what is happening. The goalposts are constantly changing. What is it that is demonised? First it was petrol, then it was diesel. Now they have both been overtaken by electric, which is what we should all be using. I am pleased to see the roll-out of the Enviro400 and Enviro500 buses in London. However, for the average consumer it can be bewildering when the advice keeps changing and it can then feel a bit punitive.
Environmental standards must mean what they say. If they are breached there must be proportionate and decisive action. For far too long, motor manufacturers in the UK have victimised the public. They have misled consumers about pollution emitted by diesel engines, and they have put millions of citizens at risk simply because they live or work near roads. VW recovered its reputation to some extent. Certainly, on the Nextdoor app, people are still complaining that its badges are being nicked from the front of their cars. Whoever is doing that, can they stop? It is completely unnecessary to remove the circular VW logo.
These companies should come clean and make things right with those who they have harmed. The Government should do everything in their power to ensure that the public are in the driving seat. We should not have to wait for dieselgate 3.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Simon Lightwood)
It is a pleasure to see you, Ms Lewell—my favourite sand dancer—chairing the debate this morning. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) on securing this debate on defeat devices in diesel vehicles. This is an important subject that rightly attracts scrutiny from Parliament, the public and campaigners. I acknowledge the concerns that my hon. Friend set out in her parliamentary questions and recent public commentary, which reflect the strength of feeling about this issue and the need for transparency and accountability from both manufacturers and regulators. Those concerns are entirely legitimate, and I welcome the opportunity to set out clearly how they align with the Government’s determination to uphold emissions standards and to ensure that the public can have full confidence in the environmental performance of vehicles on our roads.
I begin by reaffirming this Government’s commitment to delivering greener, cleaner transport and to reducing harmful emissions that affect communities across the country. Road transport emissions have significant implications for public health. We continue to take firm, evidence-based action wherever practices risk undermining public trust or air quality. Alongside our compliance and enforcement work, we are delivering wider measures to cut harmful emissions, including by supporting the transition to zero-emission vehicles, as my hon. Friend referenced.
We have consistently said that prohibited defeat devices are illegal, are misleading for drivers and can have negative impacts on the public. My Department has considerably strengthened its oversight of vehicle emissions in recent years. Since 2016, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s vehicle market surveillance unit has carried out increasingly rigorous emissions testing programmes using both laboratory and real-world methods to identify suspicious performance. The DVSA actively investigates potential non-compliance, and where its assessments identify issues, manufacturers are required to take corrective action in line with DVSA’s published enforcement policy.
This Government are undertaking a targeted and comprehensive programme of assessments, which formally commenced in early 2025, to assess a range of Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel cars and vans produced between 2010 and 2018. As my hon. Friend would probably expect, we are focusing on vehicles with the greatest potential to cause harm, and our remediation actions are designed to reduce real-world emissions as quickly and effectively as possible. Although those models are no longer entering the market, they remain on our roads and the public quite rightly expect them to meet the standards set out at approval. I think, at present, there are 110 individual vehicle models that are under active investigation. That reflects the scale and complexity of the challenge.
To be absolutely clear, every vehicle model within scope will undergo a full assessment, and manufacturers are now working to firm, defined deadlines. The DVSA has completed assessments on a number of models and is now reviewing detailed submissions from manufacturers, with further assessments underway. We will conclude the process as soon as evidence allows, to ensure that any findings are robust, fair and accountable. Where non-compliance is identified, manufacturers will be required to take corrective action and enforcement will escalate where deadlines are not met. That approach is intended to achieve real-world improvements in air quality swiftly and fairly.
The Government have also strengthened the enforcement framework available to regulators. Since 2018, it has been an offence to place vehicles containing prohibited defeat systems on the market. My Department is equipped to require swift corrective action to address non-compliance. We are also considering whether we need to go further and build on our existing powers under assimilated EU law to require compulsory environmental recalls to deliver the intended outcomes.
Let me be clear: if non-compliance is confirmed, the DVSA will require manufacturers to take whatever remedial action is necessary, at no cost to consumers. Where any serious risk is evidenced, that remedial action must be taken without delay.
On transparency, I fully recognise the public interest in understanding the outcomes of this work, and manufacturer-specific findings will be published once investigations are complete and decisions are final. That approach is entirely consistent with other market surveillance activity. Waiting until that point is important to ensure that due process is followed, to avoid prejudicing live investigations and to maintain the integrity of any future enforcement action.
Dr Huq
I like what I have heard so far because, up to now, this has all been a bit mysterious. I wonder if it might be a good idea for me to meet the Minister. As a London MP, I have experience with ULEZ—we have a riding school in my seat, and an exemption was made for a horsebox. As I have experience of what happens in London, it would be good to talk this through, but it is impossible in a debate like this. Would the Minister meet me at some point?
Simon Lightwood
How could I refuse? Of course I will meet my hon. Friend.
Publishing incomplete or provisional findings would risk misleading consumers and compromising the quality of the technical assessments underway, as my hon. Friend will appreciate. To support transparency, I am pleased to say that the Department will shortly publish its dedicated gov.uk landing page. That will bring together all the emissions compliance publications, and once investigations are concluded, the final outcomes of the programme will be added to that page for full public access.
The programme has been developed in close collaboration with the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the UK Health Security Agency. That ensures that our approach draws on the full breadth of Government expertise. That collective effort means that our response is co-ordinated and informed by those who play a direct role in delivering cleaner, safer vehicles.
We are closely following the Pan-NOx group litigation concerning alleged defeat devices. Once the court hands down its judgment, we will consider carefully any implications, including whether changes are needed to our policy framework or enforcement approach. Internationally, we continue to work closely with regulators in EU member states, which helps us to anticipate emerging issues, align on best practice and ensure that manufacturers face a coherent regulatory environment across markets. It reinforces our ability to act decisively where cross-border issues arise, recognising that emissions compliance is a global challenge.
To conclude, a great deal has been achieved, and more is underway. The Government are delivering a thorough and proportionate programme designed to address potential non-compliance swiftly, transparently and in line with our legal duties. Our shared objective is clear: deliver cleaner air, protect public health, uphold public confidence and ensure that the vehicles on our roads meet the standards that the public expect and deserve.
Question put and agreed to.
Minister for Men and Boys
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential merits of appointing a Minister for Men and Boys.
This is about men and women, not men or women. It is about boys and girls, not boys or girls. It is crucial to set that out from the start. John Gray was clear in his book, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”. We all intrinsically know and feel that there are inherent differences in the way men and women deal with problems and have problems. Tony Blair spotted that women were struggling, and in May 1997 brought in a Minister for women to look across Government to try to sort out the problems facing women and girls.
From a Conservative perspective, this is ideologically difficult because we broadly do not like to segregate people by splitting them into groups, but one thing that unites us is the obvious fact that there cannot be one without the other. We currently have a Minister for women and girls; we do not have a Minister for men and boys. During my six years in Parliament, I have looked at these topics. I started with the position that I did not want to see such a Minister, but all the data and metrics coming forward show that boys and men are broadly falling behind. I have come to the conclusion that without a Minister for men and boys, working with a Minister for women and girls, they will continue to do so.
I will canter through some of the evidence. Let us start with health, my background. The most alarming stat is that suicide is the leading cause of death for men under the age of 50—three times more common in men than in women. Between the ages of 15 and 19, for every girl who takes her own life, three and a half boys do likewise. What about cancers? Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men, and more than two thirds of liver disease deaths are of men. That is a fourfold increase in death rates from liver disease over the past 40 years.
Some might say that the Government are covering these issues in the men’s health strategy, which is partly true, but let us take something more tricky. I have done a lot of work on steroid abuse and image and performance-enhancing drugs. According to the Priory Group’s research, 10 years ago about 50,000 people were using such drugs. Now, 500,000 to 1 million people are using them to improve their musculature and the way they look. That use is heavily male dominated—so much so that at injection sites where people go illegally to use drugs, about 80% of needle exchange usage is related to steroid abuse. One in 10 gym-goers suffers from bigorexia—wanting to get more muscular. Those are inherently men-related problems.
When I raise that with Government, I am first pointed to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport because it is sport-related, and UK Anti-Doping, but that covers elite sport, and not anything else. The Department of Health and Social Care says that it is a sport problem, an education problem, a Home Office problem or a justice problem. Therein lies the difficulty.
To widen this further, let us move on to education. The Centre for Social Justice’s “Lost Boys” research shows that at GCSE, boys achieve on average half a grade lower than girls in every subject. At A-level, girls outperform boys on average by over a grade and a half across their best three subjects. Female students outnumber male students by three to two for university admissions. House of Commons Library research shows that in spring term 2024, boys were more than 1.5 times more likely to be suspended than girls, and more than twice as likely to be excluded from school.
Let us translate that into employment, which falls under the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business and Trade. Statistics this month from the Office for National Statistics show that there are one million working-age men, aged 16-64, without jobs—the highest since October 2014. The unemployment rate for men is at 5.8%. The last time it was that high was in June 2015. The UK unemployment rate for young males aged between 18 and 24 hit 17% in the three months to December 2025; that surpassed the covid peak that we had, and is the highest rate since 2014. According to the Library, when it comes to young people not in education, employment or training—very topical—historically, young women were more likely to be out of work and education. However, the gap narrowed from 2010 and, since 2016, it has swapped over, with generally more young men being NEET than young women.
What impact does that have on the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice? Some 96% of our prisoners are male; only 4% are female. The CSJ report shows that men make up 90% of hospital admissions for knife assaults. In 2022-23, boys accounted for 87% of homicide victims among people aged 16 to 24, and nine in 10 victims of teenage violence were male. Nine in 10 of our boys in custody said they had been excluded from school. I have not even mentioned the online world, which is covered by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. There are many stats that I could mention, but they all point to the fact that these are cross-departmental issues and, more importantly, cross-societal issues.
I want to touch on the culture for men and boys. Many, many people are starting to raise the alarm about what is happening to young boys and men, from celebrities such as Gareth Southgate and David Gandy to think-tanks like the Centre for Social Justice, Equimundo and the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys, and charities including Movember. Why is this happening? My analysis is that, over the past 20 or 30 years, we have been fantastic at championing what women should be, what positive role models should be and what they look like in society. That has been fantastic, and they have had great success from doing that. But, at the same time, we seem to have slightly diminished what it is to be a good man. It used to be a gentleman: someone who was polite, held doors and looked after their other half. Now, men are a little more unsure about that.
If we add in the term “toxic masculinity”, we really have a problem. We do not often hear about toxic femininity. On the one side, we have told women exactly where they should be, what they should do and what they can achieve; on the other, we have taken away the good role model for men, and then potentially demonised them by calling them toxic. No wonder men and boys are struggling to find their way in the world. I often ask the question, “What is a good man in the modern world?” I am yet to find a good answer. Research shows that, when young boys or young men are asked, “Who is your role model?”, they will not give an answer and, if they do, the role models are few and far between. How scary for society that we are not getting the role models for young men to look up to or aspire to be.
What evidence is there to back this up? The CSJ men in culture survey in 2025 was really helpful. It showed that 46%--almost half—agreed with the statement that modern dads are often treated as ineffectual or incompetent in popular culture. Some 76% agreed that today’s teenagers lack proper role models across popular culture. When Members are out and about, they can test that by asking, “Who do men look up to, and why?”, and see if they get an answer. It is actually a little worse than that. The “Lost Boys” report, also by the CSJ, cites Civitas polling that found that 41% of sixth form boys and girls have been taught, in school lessons, that boys are a problem for society. The Government are trying to deal with this, and they are well intended in what they are trying to do.
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his excellent speech. On boys being seen as a problem in society, does he agree that if we are worried about boys being receptive to messages such as those that come from Andrew Tate, we need to ask what we are putting boys through that could make them fertile soil for such messages?
Dr Evans
The hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic point, and I will come on to Andrew Tate. That is my worry, and I have been raising concerns both in this House and outside about the dangers of labelling what young men could be. Only this week, the British Medical Journal published a paper on the topic of the Government’s misogyny plans and lessons, which said that while it is
“well intentioned, the UK government’s strategy to counter misogyny may inadvertently alienate vulnerable young men”.
It went on to say:
“The government’s strategy overlooks the causes that draw young men and boys towards online misogyny. Although the government purportedly aims to tackle the ‘root causes’ of misogynistic abuse, its argument relies on circular logic by claiming that misogyny itself is the cause of abuse.”
Here lies the problem, because I have also been concerned about the assessment of the impact of the likes of Andrew Tate. We all know that he is misogynistic, but what is missed in the media debate is why so many young boys were drawn to him in the first place. He was a world champion kickboxer and he stands up for the masculine traits of being strong, forthright and protective, but he used them to manipulate his position—and young people—to create an empire with a criminal nature behind it.
Unless we get at the root causes of what is going on, I fear that we will make the problem worse rather than better. A good example of that is the #MeToo movement. It was a fantastic movement in 2017, which did so much to uncover the horrendous sexual harassment and sexual assaults that went on. But it has had an impact: surveys in 2019 by the Harvard Business Review found that 19% of men said that they would be
“reluctant to hire attractive women”.
It also found that 21% were
“reluctant to hire women for jobs involving close interpersonal interactions with men”—
for example, those involving travel—and 27% would avoid
“one-on-one meetings with female colleagues”.
That is because they are good men, and they were worried about the impact of how they could have been perceived. That is what happens when we do not have positive role models and a positive place in society for men and boys.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
Talking about positive role models, in preparation for this debate I looked at the number of people in teacher training who were male. Although the numbers are going up, the proportion of men is going marginally down. I had the advantage—as did my children—of having teachers who were positive role models. What does the hon. Gentleman say about making sure that young people have teachers who are positive role models?
Dr Evans
I am really pleased to take that intervention, because the hon. Lady hits on a crucial point. When people are asked about role models, they may often identify their father, teacher, brother or football coach— a male figure in their life who they aspire to. If the number of male role models is falling, that is a concern, and that links to encouraging men and placing them into that profession. That would be one of the merits of having a men and boys Minister: they could look at exactly that issue and make sure that we are not siloed on that basis.
To turn to a more up-to-date view of where society is, an article in Psychology Today in 2023 reported on Pew research that indicated that
“over 60% of young men are currently single”
and that
“sexual intimacy is at a 30-year low across genders.”
The article cited multiple reasons for those findings such as pressure, financial issues and changes in lifestyle choices for men, but it also cited changes in women making more choices about where they want to go. That can leave men feeling lost, isolated and lonely. This is another prime example of men not knowing where they fit in society. As we have touched on, if we get this wrong, the likes of Andrew Tate will fill this space as a way forward, and I am incredibly concerned that that leads young men down a path that we will struggle to get them back from.
Given all the evidence—and there is much, much more that I am sure we will hear about in the debate—and the worsening metrics, I simply ask this: will the Government consider a men and boys Minister? In that context, could the Minister set out why we need a women and girls Minister? To finish where I started, this is about men and women, not men or women.
Several hon. Members rose—
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called. If speeches are kept to around seven minutes, we will get everyone in.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I want to say a big thank you to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for setting the scene incredibly well. He and I are often in debates together. This time, he leads and I follow; it is usually the other way round. I thank him for the information that he shared. We always try to be careful in our focus, but this is really important. He mentioned a couple of things I will refer to in Northern Ireland that I believe are critical.
I am pleased to see the Minister in her place. I know that she has been to Northern Ireland on a couple of occasions and has had a chance to interact with the relevant Minister. That will be one of my asks of her, in relation to how we move forward.
I stand in support of this proposal. I want to take this opportunity to represent the men and young boys back home—I represent everybody back home, but this debate is focused on a Minister for men and boys. I wish to see everyone treated equally: I want to make it clear that my support for this proposal does not in any way diminish or overlook the challenges faced by women and girls, as the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth also made clear. It is almost like we are always trying to excuse ourselves, but we just want to make sure that everybody understands where we are coming from. However, it is important to acknowledge the different circumstances, and I am pleased that we can use this debate to do just that.
I have often highlighted the statistics back home in relation to the reported underachievement of working-class Protestant men in Northern Ireland. In my constituency of Strangford and the neighbouring constituency of Belfast East, their underachievement is quite significant. Data for 2018-19 showed that just shy of 38% of Protestant working-class boys eligible for free school meals achieved the benchmark of five GCSEs, compared with 46.7% of Catholic boys. It is an issue. I highlighted it in my previous jobs at the Assembly and at Ards and North Down borough council—Ards borough council, as it was then. Dundonald high school, Movilla high school and Glastry college, where I used to be on the board of governors, are examples of schools that have taken direct action to try to address the issues.
Some people will not have the ability—I say this very carefully—to achieve educational standards. Let us be honest: some people are quite happy to go and work on the farm or work in their dad’s business. That is what some of the young boys round my way have done. They will achieve; they will not fall shy of achieving. It will just be a different type of achievement. But in this day and age, educational standards are so important, and we have to encourage those who do not do that to get involved.
The King’s Trust does fantastic work back home and is involved with the regional colleges. We see advantages from that, but we still have a stubbornly high number of young Protestant males who underachieve, and it indicates a clear gap associated with community background and disadvantage. These patterns have been noted over many years. Bodies such as the Community Relations Council and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland have highlighted the underachievement of Protestant working-class boys as a persistent issue that has not significantly improved. In the meetings that the Minister has had with the Education Minister back home, was there a discussion of how, collectively and together, we can share ideas and do things better?
I am thankful for the Minister taking an interest and visiting Northern Ireland: it shows that she is a lady who wants to bring about change, and I appreciate that. The former Education Minister Robert Halfon was very effective at addressing this issue here in this Chamber, on the mainland; I remember some of his engagement ideas. Has the Minister had the opportunity to see some of his good work? The issue is directly connected to the case for a Minister for men and boys. Decisive action is needed to address the stats, understand the underlying causes and implement measures to improve outcomes.
I also want to discuss a very important topic in relation to men’s health in Northern Ireland. It is the very same issue that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth mentioned. In 2023, 221 deaths by suicide were registered in Northern Ireland, of which 77% were males: men make up most of the deaths by suicide. I remember that when I became an MP in 2010, we had had a spate of suicides in Ballynahinch. It shows how society is not coping with things: there were half a dozen young boys from Ballynahinch. Mairisine Stanfield, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, started a hub in Ballynahinch and the whole community came together collectively and tried to address that. Similar things are happening elsewhere. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for males under 50 in Northern Ireland, so it is not always young people, but Northern Ireland spends less per person on mental health than any other UK nation, despite the high need.
I will keep to my time, Mr Twigg, as you asked. Appointing a dedicated Minister for men and boys would be a vital step towards tackling the mental health crisis affecting men across Northern Ireland. I ask the Minister again how we can work better to address that. Young men, particularly those from Protestant communities, face high rates of underachievement, social isolation and pressures that often go unnoticed. A Minister focused on their needs could co-ordinate targeted support, break down the stigma and ensure that their voices are heard in policy decisions. This is about improving and saving lives. I ask that we do all we can to achieve that in the near future.
I will make one final comment. Sometimes, in a crowd of people, there is one person who laughs the loudest and is the most outgoing of all. You might say to yourself, “You know something? That guy’s got no problems.” But when he goes home, that is when the problems start: as my mother used to say, he would hang his fiddle on the door. On the outside he is bright and breezy, but when he goes home he just disappears into his shell. That is why young men need to be helped.
I thank the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth again for enabling us to speak about the issue. I look forward to hearing from the Minister and from other hon. Members.
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this debate and for his excellent speech. Although we represent different parties, and although I believe he heckled me the last time I spoke in the Chamber, there is a great deal of unity on the issue. Perhaps this is a moment when men and boys and their needs are being recognised. We need to seize that moment. I declare an interest: I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues with the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies).
Men and women are different. They are different by birth and by nature, but also by socialisation. That is not to deny that there are many different ways of being male and being female. Indeed, in my own home, I am a man who is inclined to being emotional. I like musical theatre and baking, and I am married to a wonderful woman who likes mechanics and rugby. We have a happy and rich marriage. I do not think that we should stereotype men and women, but they are different, and we do have different socialisation. Gender inequality is real, and gender inequality hurts everyone differently. It is wrong to ignore the gendered aspects of challenges that limit any human being from fulfilling their potential. It was wrong when society did that for far too long to women and girls, and it is wrong that we continue to ignore some of the gendered issues that affect men and boys.
I represent a constituency, Bishop Auckland, where I see boys who have too often felt left behind. There is underachievement at every stage of education, there is a lack of emotional support and there is a system that too often blames boys rather than backing them. I was pleased to lead a debate last year on the educational disadvantage that keenly affects northern and particularly north-eastern working-class boys. I made the point that we only have to go back as far as the 1970s to see girls underachieving in the education curriculum. There was rightly a big public outcry and specific gendered strategies were developed, such as getting more girls into science and technology. That was the right thing to do.
Today, however, we see that girls are outperforming boys at every educational stage. The north-east has the lowest GCSE attainment nationally, and only 60% of boys are school-ready before they start early-years education, compared with 75% of girls. Boys go on to score half a grade lower on average at GCSE. They account for 70% of permanent exclusions and 95% of youth custody. In the area that I represent, one in seven young men is not in education, employment or training, which is nearly double the rate for young women. Structural inequality means that working-class boys start behind and stay behind.
I am pleased that the Government are making great strides in their strategy on violence against women and girls, which is timely and important. It is also important that boys and men be partners in that strategy, but we must not lose sight of the fact that 2 million men every year are victims of sexual assault, domestic abuse or stalking, representing 37% of the victims of that type of behaviour.
I was similarly pleased to see the Health Secretary launching a men’s health strategy on International Men’s Day. That was urgently needed, and it is great that it has been brought forward. I appreciate the comments that have been made in this debate about men’s mental health, which is a particular challenge in my community. Mental health challenges are driven by issues such as loneliness, but a common cause, which I see in my surgeries all the time, is men being denied access to their children. Through no fault of their own and with no accusation of wrongdoing, they are simply not able to enjoy a family life. That means children missing out on fathers, and fathers missing out on the company of children.
Tessa Munt
I am particularly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because it is an area of interest to me. I have been a long-term supporter of Families Need Fathers, although not necessarily Fathers4Justice, which pinged off out of that. I tried to work out exactly how many times judges have allowed child arrangements orders to be given to fathers, but no data is kept. If we do not have data about how many children live with which parent—or about where there are shared parental orders, which in my view have to be the route forward, except in exceptional circumstances—how can we possibly know what is happening?
Sam Rushworth
The hon. Member makes an excellent point. We need a separate debate on that issue, and a much wider investigation.
I am pleased that online safety is also having its moment. Online safety is so important for our children, but it is also important for adults. I am particularly concerned by violent pornography. It harms women and girls, and it harms men and boys. It harms adults as much as it harms children. We need to take it much more seriously.
I have listed a few aspects of life that I believe are gendered and need a particular gendered approach: men’s health, education, work, fatherhood, safety. I do not know whether a men’s Minister is the answer— I certainly would not want to set men and women up in competition, because I think they are equal partners in addressing these challenges—but at the very least the Government need a men’s champion to ensure that we mainstream these issues, as we have been doing for decades. We have talked about gender mainstreaming, which has meant women and girls, but it also needs to mean men and boys, through different aspects of government, whether that is in relation to health, to education, to employment or to family law. We need to look at this together, for all our sakes.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this important debate.
Men are often told that we do not talk enough about our feelings and that we bury our heads in the sand, and too often in this House and across Whitehall there is a tendency to overlook the challenges faced by men and boys. We rightly and frequently hear about the importance of protecting the rights of women and girls, and that is obviously very important, but equality must mean fairness for everybody across the United Kingdom. If we want to build a nation that everybody is proud to be part of, we must be prepared to confront the challenges facing men. We have a Minister for Women and Equalities and a Select Committee scrutinising that brief, while the civil service employs diversity and inclusion managers to promote the interests of seemingly any group other than men and boys. I am not claiming that that is done on purpose, but it needs to change.
This is not about diminishing the progress made in advancing opportunities for women and girls, but we must acknowledge that in several key areas, such as education, employment, justice and health, men face profound challenges that are simply not spoken about enough or dealt with. In education, the disparity starts early: only about 60% of boys are deemed to be school ready, compared with 75% of girls. The gap does not disappear, but persists through secondary education and beyond. Some 45,000 fewer men go to university and 18,000 fewer young men have started apprenticeships since 2017. At the same time, boys are more than twice as likely as girls to be permanently excluded from school.
Alongside the statistics, an unhelpful narrative has developed that boys are a problem to society and that they need to be managed. That does nothing to raise aspiration or instil pride and responsibility in young men. We see the issue even in working life. The number of young men unemployed for more than a year now stands at more than 107,000—the highest level since 2015, in part thanks to the economic decisions of the current Government, sadly. As we all know, long-term unemployment has serious social consequences. As has been mentioned, we have a male prison population of more than 90,000 and we have thousands of young men sleeping rough on any given night. That is not the life that any of us in this place would want for our sons, brothers or friends.
Finally, we cannot ignore the realities of men’s health. Men are more likely to become alcoholics or have addictions than women. Physically, men are more likely to be overweight, to suffer from cardiovascular disease and to die earlier than women from a range of conditions, including cancer. Most worrying of all is the fact that in England and Wales suicide is about three times more common among men than among women, and the gap continues to widen. This is the elephant in the room that we are simply not talking about enough. These outcomes demand serious and sustained attention.
Sam Rushworth
I thank the hon. Member for also raising the issue of male suicide. I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but in my constituency, ManHealth, which ran men’s support groups, has lost its funding and the groups are no longer meeting. Does the hon. Member agree that we probably need dedicated funding streams looking specifically at male mental health and support groups?
Mr Bedford
I could not agree more. I think that, at times, Departments work in silos. Strategy is not often cross-departmental and decisions made in one Department mat have a massive impact on another, so I absolutely agree with the point that the hon. Member makes.
As I said, these outcomes demand serious and sustained attention. I do see the merits of a Minister for men and boys, but I do not believe that the answer lies in creating another bureaucratic post that politicians can hide behind. When a group appears to be struggling, Whitehall groupthink leads to a new title, a new office or, God forbid, yet another quango, but symbolism does not deliver. We need real systemic and cultural change across Whitehall to improve outcomes for men, just like we do for women. Only then will we truly be able to improve the lives of not just men and boys, but everybody.
Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this debate and for his ongoing commitment to tackling the challenges facing men and boys.
Let me begin with the reality in my constituency. As has been said, some of the inequalities that we see today are baked in before school starts. One in three boys in Ipswich starts school without the foundation skills that they need to succeed. Those young boys are full of potential, yet they struggle early with reading, numeracy and social and emotional development—issues only exacerbated by the pandemic. At the very start of their lives, they are already facing a steep uphill climb that threatens to define not only their entire educational journey but their life chances.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that parents of men and boys are navigating a truly wild west? Although it is brilliant that the Government are committed to helping teachers to spot and navigate misogyny in schools, the fact is that parents are the ones at the coalface, especially in the early years. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking those parents who work really hard every day to raise kind, confident and compassionate boys who we are very proud of?
Jack Abbott
I am delighted to do that. I know that my hon. Friend is a great mum to her little children. I will come to the really important issues that she highlights later in my speech.
As has been said, we need co-ordinated, well-funded action across Departments, across Government and across our country. We must confront the real challenges in educational attainment. By the age of five, children are assessed against the early years foundation stage framework. A good level of development involves meeting milestones in communication, literacy and mathematics. That foundation is essential for primary success, GCSEs and, eventually, securing stable employment. If a child is behind at five and is struggling to communicate or manage emotions, they are far more likely to fall even further behind. That gap affects their confidence and shapes what they believe, whether they feel that university or a high-skilled apprenticeship is within reach, and whether they feel equipped to navigate the world of work.
In 2024, a Suffolk county council report showed that only 62% of boys—less than two thirds—achieve a good level of development by the age of five, compared with 79% of girls. Boys are more likely to start school struggling with the skills that underpin all later learning. Although it is important to note that girls absolutely face their own challenges, we must provide targeted interventions so that every child can thrive.
As a child progresses, the gaps continue. By key stage 2, boys from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately represented among those failing to reach the expected standards. In Suffolk, that manifests in a worrying 14.6% rate of persistent absenteeism in secondary schools. When boys disengage from the classroom, they lose the sense of belonging and the structure that school provides, which often leads to a cycle of isolation. In Ipswich, the deprivation gap has hit nearly two years: people from lower income backgrounds at GCSE are nearly two years behind their peers. But it all starts in early years: by the time they enter reception, at the age of four, they are already six months behind.
We need a strategy that understands how class, place and gender can collide to hold our young people back. The solutions lie in practical, evidence-based action. Early intervention, targeted literacy support, mentoring for at-risk boys and mental health initiatives are all vital, but we must act decisively. The Government have already taken steps to address the root causes of disengagement, starting with the men’s health strategy, released towards the end of last year. It is not just a policy document; it is the first strategy to recognise that a boy’s physical health and mental resilience are the primary drivers of his ability to concentrate in a classroom. By tackling health inequalities early, we can ensure that young boys’ underdiagnosed anxiety or physical development delays do not become lifelong barriers to their education.
Similarly, our expanded early years provision and family hubs are transforming school readiness. In Ipswich, they will act as a vital one-stop shop, providing parents with speech and language therapy and parental support before a child reaches his first day at school. For a young boy who might otherwise start reception unable to communicate his needs, leading to frustration, such hubs provide early intervention that can prevent a cycle of exclusion. These measures offer some sort of stability. They ensure that school readiness is a reality, not a slogan, by supporting the home environment and the child simultaneously. They demonstrate precisely why the solution lies in ensuring that policies are co-ordinated, well-resourced and effectively delivered in communities such as Ipswich.
It has been said, rightly, by Members across the Chamber that boys in themselves are not the problem, but we have to recognise and be honest with ourselves about the dangers they are facing at the moment, particularly online. Andrew Tate was mentioned just a moment ago. I am loath to repeat his name too often, but we have to remember that he has been charged by not just our country’s Crown Prosecution Service, but authorities in many other countries around the world. He is charged with rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking. I know how many young boys at the moment look to him as some sort of—
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
Order. Members should not speak about live court cases.
Jack Abbott
Allegedly—I think I did say that, and I apologise if I did not use that word, Mr Twigg, but that is what our Crown prosecutors have charged him with. It is terrifying that many young boys look at someone like him as a potential role model. I do not believe that there are no role models out there—the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth mentioned people such as Gareth Southgate. There are many footballers and the wonderful actors we saw at the BAFTAs, but why not start at home?
My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) spoke about the role of parents. A new Labour Group for Men and Boys has been established in partnership with The Dad Shift and Movember and vital campaigners on these issues. One of its latest campaigns is on paternity leave in this country, which is the worst in Europe—just two weeks at half the minimum wage, or nothing if someone is self-employed. We have to recognise that to develop strong children into strong men later in life, they need role models at home. That is about equal parenting and making sure that men are present in their child’s life at the earliest possible stage. Statistics show that if they are there as decent, active and present role models in a child’s early development, they will be later in life as well.
Measures such as those I have described are how we will ensure that boys in Ipswich do not just survive school and their education, but thrive and go on to live fulfilling, secure and productive lives.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I give huge thanks to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this very important debate. The question is: do we need a Minister for men and boys? I would say that ideally we do not, but we already have a Minister for women—in fact, we have the Women and Equalities Committee. We have to ask ourselves why we need these things especially for women. Is perhaps because, as a society, we feel that women are discriminated against? I think they probably are—we all know that and all agree with that. That is one of the reasons I sat on the Women and Equalities Committee in the last Parliament. But what about men? What about men and boys? What about young boys? What about white working-class young boys?
Boys and young men have historically been very useful to our society, especially when we needed coal mined, steel made in mills in the north, or factories filled with labourers to do back-breaking hard work. Young men and boys were also very useful when it came to fighting wars. They were dragged away from their towns and villages to be killed on a foreign battlefield. Even now, we send young lads to foreign fields, and they come back—at least some of them do—missing legs or arms. Even worse, some come back in a coffin, and we all say, “What a great young man he was. What a lot of great friends he had. He was a comrade. He was brave,” and so on, and in a few days we forget about him, and we leave the family to pick up the pieces and live a lifetime of grief. But these days, a lot of young men have no idea what they will do with their lives when they leave school. The pits and the coalmines have gone. Industry has declined. Net zero is killing once thriving industries in the north and the midlands—industries that took young men straight from school into the workplace, where they would spend 30 or 40 years.
Meanwhile the lawmakers in this place—some idiotic lawmakers sometimes—do not have a clue about what young men and boys are going through. Instead, they talk about white privilege, and they tell boys that they need to go on courses to not be misogynistic. That is absolutely shameful. We take all the opportunities away from young men and boys and then tell them that they are to blame for the way women are tret in this country. That is nonsense. The Centre for Social Justice tells us that boys and men are increasingly falling behind in education, employment and social wellbeing—a phenomenon often called a hidden crisis. Well, it is not a hidden crisis; it is out there in plain sight. Girls consistently outperform boys at school. We have rising loneliness, a lack of opportunities and a lack of positive role models for young men, especially in working-class communities.
Who is to blame for all this? I think this place is to blame—I truly do. We have produced a benefits system that does not encourage the family unit any more. Sometimes it is more profitable to be a single parent at home—it is mainly women, if we are honest. A lot of these women are left to bring up boys on their own, with no male role model in the house. These young boys then go to infant school and primary school, where we hardly ever see a male teacher any more. In some of the schools I visit, there is not a single male teacher. The first proper role model that some of these young lads see is when they get to senior school. It is absolutely shocking. Is it any wonder that our young men are confused and do not have any direction? In fact, some of the only interactions these young men have are with the local bobby, when they have been in trouble on the street.
It was different for me in my day. I grew up listening to my dad’s alarm clock going off every morning at 5 o’clock. He would get up and go and do a shift down the pit. Then, a few years later, he would get me up, and I would go down the pit with my dad. He was my role model. Every single lad in our village had a role model, because of the family unit. My dad was my role model, and for many other kids in the village, their dads were theirs.
I strongly believe that this place has broken our society, and it never takes any responsibility. We have MPs in this place, including the Prime Minister—I want to have a go now—telling young boys that they must watch BBC programmes like “Adolescence” because of the way women are treated. We are blaming young boys for the way women are treated. I would say, yes, let them watch this programme, but make girls watch it as well. As a society, we should all be watching these things. We need a Minister for young men and boys to put right the wrongs created in this place.
The Minister for Equalities (Olivia Bailey)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his interesting speech. His party has recently announced that it would like to scrap the Department for women and equalities, so how does his statement sit with that commitment? He also wants to scrap the Equality Act 2010. Does he recognise that the Act actually protects men and boys from discrimination on the basis of their sex?
Lee Anderson
I think we could make the Equality Act much better. We do not have to have an Equality Act in this country. On the Minister’s first point, in this country we should not really need a Minister for women, and we should not really need a Minister for men. We should probably have a Minister for people—as simple as that. Why are we discriminating? Why are we separating the two? We are all human beings. We are all people.
I talk about young men having no direction, and I want to talk about one particular group. Young men in the care system go through foster care and care homes from four or five years old. Some of them lead terrible lives. They are pushed from pillar to post. I know, because I worked in a hostel for homeless young people before I came to this place. I saw at first hand these kids coming to us at 16 years old—young men and girls. Like I say, they had been pushed from pillar to post, had no positive role model in their lives and had been in trouble with the police. As a society, we completely let down these young men. Where did they go when they left the hostel? I’ll tell you where they went: mainly to prison. We could do very little with them in the two years that we had them, because they had had a lifetime of upset, with their parents and grandparents abandoning them.
I always say that it would have been cheaper to take these young kids, at four and five, out of the care system and give them a proper education. Put them in a boarding school, give them the best training possible, and break the poverty cycle. Give them a career and a chance in life, but we do not. We put them through the care system, and then sometimes through the penal system. Every single one of the girls who left the hostel was pregnant. Do we know why that is? I’ll tell you why: it was the only way they could get a house—a council house—and a regular supply of benefits. What a terrible thing we are doing in this country. This place has created a society in which young people are failing, and we have the cheek to sit here, scratching our heads, wondering how we can put it right.
Maya Ellis
Does the hon. Member agree that one of the things that has caused a lack of male role models is the lack of third spaces and youth centres? The disinvestment in youth services, which I think averaged about 70% per local authority under the previous Government, has led to a lot of the reduction in role models in the third spaces and youth areas, and in youth funding, and that this Government have reinvested in that.
Lee Anderson
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She may have a point about care centres and whatever, but I go back. It is the family unit and the lack of male family role models that have caused this problem. We have to decide: do we want the state to provide role models for children, or do we want the family, friends, neighbours and schools to provide the male role models? I think it should be the family.
Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this debate. My goodness, where do I start? I think this debate is an incredibly good jumping off point. This is something that comes through in all our constituencies on a daily basis, and Lagan Valley is no different.
As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, Northern Ireland may be a slight outlier, in that we are a post conflict society. People of my generation grew up with a culture centred around strong men, for want of a better phrase. We also had very strong women, and I am one of them, but unfortunately I am here with you all today.
There is a societal question about how we grip this issue. I am a very outspoken advocate and champion for women and girls, but I am learning as I go that we cannot exclude men and boys from these conversations. I am heartened to hear a real acknowledgment of that today, right across the political spectrum. It was lovely and refreshing to hear someone say that women are women and men are men. That is actually really heartening, because what that looks like to one individual will be very different from how it looks to another—people have outlined their own situations, which is lovely.
That does not exclude people from the LGBT community either. Actually, whenever we look at some of the reporting around sexual violence, domestic violence and abuse, we have uncovered that, particularly in Northern Ireland, there is an issue with same-sex relationships. Gay men and women in particular feel that they have no voice whatsoever and have been really afraid to come forward, because they have felt that no one would believe them and that they did not have a place to go. On this journey, we are learning all the time that what is right for one person will be different for another, but we should never lose sight of the fact that there is a specific issue around men and boys.
It is funny that the former right hon. Member for Harlow was mentioned earlier, because, in my previous life, I worked in business, and one of the things I was very passionate about was apprenticeships. Members right across the House have spoken today about the deindustrialisation of Britain and the lack of pathways for care-experienced young people who may potentially come into the justice system. The old phrase, “It costs more to do jail than Yale”, comes to mind. As other Members have said, if we ignore these issues in the early years, we are just saving up problems for later down the line, when it is much more difficult in a person’s life and much more costly to the state—if we want to put it in those blunt terms.
The issue of apprenticeships is close to my heart, even now. I know we are still navigating our way through the apprenticeship levy, and what it means in some of the new industries that we are trying to promote to give our young people opportunities, but we have to be honest and ask whether there has been a move away from wanting to discuss the roles that young men and boys may have traditionally gone into. I say that as somebody who worked in manufacturing, and I have spent an awful lot of my time trying to encourage women and girls into manufacturing and science, technology, engineering and maths industries.
I think it is okay to say to men and boys, “If you want to do work on the tools, you can do that. We will support you.” No one has mentioned it in this debate, but in my constituency we have a large history of people going into the armed forces. If men and boys want to do that and get a trade—and if women and girls want to do that, because a lot of women close to me have served—that is completely fine. There is nothing wrong in saying that to men and boys. I do not think that is reinforcing an unhealthy gender stereotype; it is simply allowing people permission to do what they want and what they feel is right.
Family access and contact is a big issue that is close to my heart—Members have specifically raised that in this debate. I am deeply concerned about some of the issues that our men and boys face in the family court system. I do not know how we resolve that. It will not be done at the stroke of a pen or by legislation, but I am seriously concerned about how we deal with that issue, going forward.
At the weekend, in my Lagan Valley constituency, I attended an event through the Resurgam Trust in Lisburn. It was well attended by men from right across the community, but representatives of the trust said to me privately that they struggle to get people there. However, they got people there, which is the most important thing. We cannot let go of those men and boys when they step forward.
Is a Ministry for men and boys the answer? I am not sure, but I certainly do not want to dismiss it out of hand. It is worth considering. No matter our views, there is a perception out there: “If we have a Minister for women and girls, why do we not have one for men and boys?” I understand the logic in that argument, and I am not going to dismiss it.
Do I think we need to keep having these conversations? Absolutely. I think it would be to everyone’s detriment not to continue having them. I commend the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth for securing this debate, and commend everyone for contributing in really good faith. I look forward to the contributions of the Government and Opposition Front Benchers.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
It is good to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg, and I am sorry that I did not have the chance to say that in my earlier intervention. I commend the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this debate.
When I looked at it, I was amazed at how many different topics might come into scope of this debate, and many of them have been mentioned already. Following all I have heard today, I suspect that we probably do need a Minister for men and boys to make sure there is some focus, because when there is a Minister, people tend to sit up and pay attention to what is going on. I know the Prime Minister said, in response to the focus on “Adolescence”, that he did not want such a Minister, but I think it would not be a bad thing, even if for a trial period of three or five years.
I will briefly summarise. I have already mentioned the data on teacher training, but there are all sorts of other areas that particularly concern men and boys. There is, as far as I can tell, no data on child arrangements orders, referred to by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood), so we do not know what is happening. Shared parenting has to be a really good thing, with the requisite exclusions where it is not safe. Paternity leave was introduced in 1999 and paternity pay in 2003, but again there are very few public statistics, and the statistics that exist are not comparable, so we cannot see in which direction we are going. We have isolated islands of data that are not particularly helpful.
From 2010 to 2015, I was part of the Administration that introduced shared parental leave and pay under the Children and Families Act 2014. I am glad that the Government reviewed parental leave and pay last year, but as far as I can see, it opened in July and closed in August, when loads of people are on holiday, so I do not know how much of a response there was. Is the Minister able to enlighten us on when the outcome of that consultation might be published? I cannot see any information on that, but she may correct me.
Given my life experience, through the various groups I have worked with over time, I want to put a flag in the ground on another serious problem: men as victims of domestic violence perpetrated by women. It is definitely not cool and definitely difficult for men to report. They do not think they are going to be believed—there is that fear of not being believed.
Dr Luke Evans
The hon. Member may be aware of a Netflix series, “The Diplomat”, in which a very strong woman had an altercation with her husband. The comedy of the scene was that she beat him several times with the security guards looking on. That was glossed over and seen as part of being a strong woman, but it is the kind of problem that we have when we talk about men being victims of domestic violence, which is still normalised in modern society these days. Does the hon. Member agree that that is the kind of thing we need to watch out for?
Tessa Munt
We need to do more than watch out; that is completely unacceptable. I know so many men who have been the victims of domestic abuse. That is shockingly bad.
Sam Rushworth
I believe I am correct in saying that we do not disaggregate domestic abuse figures by gender. What is reported as domestic abuse is often assumed to mean violence against women, but it is actually just domestic abuse. That can include abuse against men, who are included in those statistics. Will the hon. Member speak about that?
Tessa Munt
I absolutely agree. That goes back to the business of data. We need to have the data, and I ask the Minister to look at that issue as well. I have made several points about data and statistics. If we do not know what is going on, we cannot possibly make an intelligent assumption about anything.
Another area—to criticise my own gender—is that of children so often being used as a weapon against men. Again, this is something that I have seen in the groups in which I have been involved and in my work in the past: the use of children, most often—though not always—by women is a shocking indictment. We have not got to grips with that, and we absolutely need to.
I have listened to all the comments about education, and I want to make a quick observation about macho male culture. The President of the United States seems to typify what people might think of as an alpha male leader. His version of masculinity seems to see dominance, subordination of others and aggression as desirable and socially valued traits. His politics has been explicitly endorsed by Andrew Tate—I can hardly bring myself to say his name—but in that context, I thank Gareth Southgate. He raised the alarm in his public lecture that young men definitely do not have positive role models, which makes them vulnerable to the influence of online personalities who promote negative ideologies about women and the world generally. The world is not against men and boys, in my view, and people saying that that is the case is unhelpful. That is why we should laud the efforts of Gareth Southgate to rebalance that.
I will quickly comment on prostate cancer. One in eight men gets prostate cancer, and black men are twice as likely to get it as those of other colours, so screening for men with the relevant genetic variants is good—but that is for a very small group. Last weekend, I was pleased to be at Wells town hall in my constituency, where the Cheddar Rotary and the Wells Lions club, and a whole group of fantastic health professionals spent the day testing 320 men. The misfortune was that about 38 of them could not turn up, for one reason or another, but it is brilliant when that sort of stuff happens in our communities. That is a start, but we need Government to step up on prostate cancer.
I want to talk very briefly about male suicide. Some 14 men a day take their own lives. Again, there are some amazing things that happen. The all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues, co-chaired by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), identified that many men view suicide as a rational solution to life’s events that they cannot solve any longer, whether that is relationship breakdown or financial pressures. Rather than viewing suicide as a clinical condition and a health issue, they see it as a life problem.
Here, I pay tribute to the late Derek Mead, who provides a room at the cattle market at Junction 24 on the M5 where health checks for farmers are available. There is also a lady called Susie Wilkinson in my constituency, who is part of the Farming Community Network. Those are people who support people in the community.
I will write to the Minister with several things that my party has asked for to promote mental health. There are so many things. There should be an MOT at key points in men’s lives, and in people’s lives generally. In conclusion I think that we probably need to have a Minister for men and boys in the short term.
Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg, on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing this important debate.
I declare an interest as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues. It is a huge pleasure to work with the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys in that role, advancing the wellbeing, safety and happiness of men and boys across the country. The fact that I have the opportunity to work with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) makes it even more thrilling. It is wonderful to work cross-party on something that matters in all our communities, which has been highlighted this afternoon.
It is only when all of us—men and boys, women and girls—are happy, leading by example, and creating a fair, safe and equal society where everybody has the opportunity to prosper, that some of the deep, ingrained issues in our constituencies and daily lives will be fixed. It was a pleasure to hear some of the speeches and comments from Members on both sides of the House, who have passionately and rightly spoken up about the great work in their constituencies and their experiences. It has been a really insightful conversation this afternoon.
It is a sad fact that, as we have heard today, 14 men die by suicide every day—more than 5,000 a year in England and Wales. Families and loved ones are affected, and those men are deeply cared about. The fact that suicide continues to be the largest killer of men under 50 in the UK is a huge cause for concern. The first men’s health strategy for England is extremely welcome, and I will say more on that shortly. The initiatives on the stigma surrounding mental health, particularly for men, are vital, but I was pleased to see support for emergency service workers in the policing reform White Paper, which is welcomed by Samaritans. That is a key step forward, and it will partly help with the issue.
In my constituency role and shadow ministerial roles, I have met some amazing organisations that do so much for men and boys. The charitable area is often the first point of contact for men and boys. Women often have moments, friendships and other things in their lives where there is a natural conversation point. For men, it is very often a health issue that they reach out about—if they do at all—so it is vital that we fund and support those areas. There are organisations such as Movember, MAN v FAT—I will say more on that shortly—the wonderful Men’s Sheds, which I and many of us have in our constituencies, and there is the work of Samaritans. Where there are suicide hotspots and other issues in Sussex, that work really matters. I was delighted, like many of us, to win a Movember award for being a men’s health champion, which now sits proudly in my office. I am delighted to see so many other people winning those.
Hon. Members have rightly spoken about talking of masculinity in a positive way. Positive role models are important, but I wonder why we need an adjective around masculinity. I thank everybody who has taken on points about culture this afternoon.
I said I would return to the men’s health strategy, tackling HIV, prostate cancer and health equality. My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth opened the debate fantastically well; I am proud to call him a friend. His work on this really matters. It is now standard that we have an International Men’s Day debate and fringe events at our party conferences. Those have been as well attended as the Conservative women’s organisation events I am involved in. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, as I am sure we all do, that it should never be a choice of either/or. It was important that he opened the debate by spelling out why that matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) talked about the key, which is outcomes. Co-ordinated action is a key message from today’s debate. The hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) expressed strong views and values, many of them sounding very Conservative. I am not sure she would be delighted to hear that. The point about family courts and family breakdown is important, as well as being there for kids and being challenging. Men often want to be there for family, but the process holds them back. It is difficult for men to put their heads above the parapet. Many men want and need to be involved in their children’s lives. The hon. Lady was right to spell that out, having heard from her constituents.
I said I would talk about MAN v FAT. I enjoyed meeting Richard Crick, its director, some time ago. That is an amazing, inclusive programme, which coaches and supports men in their health. He and I, like the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland and many others, are Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys champions. I have never felt so championing—it is amazing. I am delighted to be mentioned in the same breath as Gareth Southgate and Lawrence Dallaglio. Gareth Southgate’s LinkedIn posts are amazing, offering the best time on social media. My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth thought I was interested in this just because of his work with David Gandy, but I promise I am interested in the whole gamut. That shows the breadth and importance of role models across all sections of society.
I know the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) feels this strongly. Perhaps this Parliament is doing the wrong thing; how about it always trying to do the right thing? In this area, working with role models and more widely, there is an opportunity for all of us. The hon. Member is right that there is a blame game. Where are the role models? Let us have a look at that.
Single men on apps, how does that work? We know of incel culture and the challenges around those who are lost and lonely. We know that loneliness can tip into mental health conditions, so it is right to look at social media. The leader of my party is talking about the under-16 challenge. It is right that we properly address the issue of white working-class boys. Too many young people are being left disillusioned and left behind. That is a fact; let us get on with doing something about it, for example, dealing with online safety and the harms around young children. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland rightly talked about pornography.
We have heard today about men as victims of domestic violence from the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt). I do not believe in using the words domestic abuse and I do not like the term domestic violence. I call it criminality in the home. It does not matter who instigates it; we should deal with it. If it were on the front lawn or down the street, we would deal with it, no matter who is the perpetrator. We need to continue in that vein with that cross-party approach.
My question to the Minister, whom I am pleased to see in her place, is: what is the Government’s position on the culture of men and boys? We have heard about the thought-provoking approach of Gareth Southgate and others. Do the Government believe that masculinity needs an adjective? Mothers of young boys, and indeed this mother of young girls, want all our young people to be supported. Crucially, whether they be feminine or masculine, they need to be happy, particularly our young boys in their masculinity.
The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, my co-chair in the all-party parliamentary group, mentioned the boy problem. He spoke about excellent role models. One we work with is the amazing Mark Brooks OBE, who is the director of the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys. The hon. Member rightly talked about partnership and fatherhood, and made some typically thoughtful comments.
Jim Shannon
Everybody has referred to role models. Young boys look towards a man for a better role model, but we should recognise that a mother can also be a role model in the way she shapes us. When I was a wee boy, I was privileged to have a number of ladies from Ballywalter to guide me. Sometimes the ladies in the house—the mothers, the aunties, the friends—can very much be a role model as well.
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, and that is why I take such an interest in this area.
The feeling of hopelessness and anger is being exploited, which creates myriad challenges that make the most vulnerable even more vulnerable. We must step up on education, employment, health and aspiration. All of that is impacting hope. Some people in particular sectors, such as farming, are more isolated. It is not okay that our men are not thriving. Hope and confidence need to be in every community. This is truly a cross-party issue.
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, I remind her to leave a minute or two at the end for Dr Evans to wind up.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Olivia Bailey)
It is always an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for opening the debate and for his commitment to tackling the issues facing many men and boys. I thank him and other hon. Members, whose thoughtful and varied contributions have led to a worthwhile debate and showed the range of challenges men encounter in today’s world, including problems with their health, their work, their family life or harmful influences online.
Specific ministerial positions and titles are, of course, a matter for the Prime Minister, so I am sure hon. Members will forgive me for not commenting on that in detail, but I assure them that not having the word “men” in our titles does not prevent me or any of my colleagues from working hard to support men and boys across our country. Indeed, two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a thought-provoking debate on educational outcomes for boys, where I was able to share some of what the Government are doing about the challenges facing boys in schools.
Lee Anderson
It is great that the Minister is doing work with young boys, but does she agree that boys can be boys and girls can be girls, especially growing up through school? Does she think it is helpful that boys are told they can go to school in dresses?
Olivia Bailey
I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. I think it is important that we support children to have a happy, healthy and enjoyable childhood.
As a mum of two boys, I am well aware of the challenges facing our boys in schools, and as an Equalities Minister, I am pleased to be able to work with colleagues across Government to take action on those issues. The Equality Act 2010 requires the interests of both and women to be considered when all Ministers make decisions and when officials implement policies. We are committed to supporting men and boys in all areas where they face disadvantage, recognising that too many are really struggling with the challenges in our society today.
Olivia Bailey
I will come on to discuss that issue in more detail. Some of the issues that the Minister for Women and Equalities would cover include our commitment to tackling violence against women and girls or inequality in the workplace. I will come on to talk in more detail about the things the Government are doing for men and boys.
As I said, we are committed to supporting men and boys in all areas where they face disadvantage, recognising that too many are struggling with the challenges in our society today. That is why the Prime Minister has asked the Deputy Prime Minister to lead work across Government to improve outcomes for men and boys. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has been set up to support Ministers in this work, which includes a specific focus on convening and co-ordinating work across Departments so that we can ensure a joined-up approach that delivers meaningful and measurable change. The Prime Minister has also committed to holding a national summit on men and boys later this year to bring together key sector partners, and we will share more details on that in due course.
The hon. Members for Hinckley and Bosworth and for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) spoke about the distinct issues that men face in our healthcare system. That is something the Government are acutely aware of, and last year we published England’s first ever men’s health strategy, reflecting many of the concerns rightly raised by speakers today. Drawn up in partnership with men themselves, experts, men’s groups, charities and campaigners, the strategy directly addresses some of the health challenges and disadvantages that men face. It sets out how we are improving men’s access to health services and enabling men to make healthier choices. It also outlines how to tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, including mental health and suicide, respiratory illness, prostate cancer and heart disease. We are now focused on implementing the commitments set out in the strategy, including how partnerships and stakeholders can support and champion the strategy and its implementation.
On mental health specifically, Members have made thoughtful contributions today, and I thank them for sharing powerful stories. I particularly liked the anecdote told by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about his mother and “hanging a fiddle on the door”. I thought that was a powerful example of what we are talking about.
Around three in four of the people who died by suicide in 2024 were men, with 25% of incidents being among middle-aged men alone. We are determined to tackle this inequality. Our men’s health strategy includes investment in community-based health and suicide prevention programmes and a new partnership with the Premier League to ensure men know where to go for mental health support. We have also announced the suicide prevention pathfinders programme for middle-aged men. This programme, co-designed with experts and men with lived experience, will tackle the barriers men face in seeking support.
More widely, the Government have already taken significant steps to improve NHS mental health services, including hiring almost 7,000 extra mental health workers since July 2024. And thanks to an increase in NHS talking therapies, more adults with anxiety and depression are getting back into work.
I also want to highlight the work the Government are doing to support boys and young men, in particular. My hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) and for Ipswich and the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) raised the challenges they face growing up in today’s society. In particular, comments were made about the importance of school readiness; as I am also the Minister for Early Education, I am determined that we address that issue, as we drive towards record numbers of our children being ready for school.
All children and young people should have every opportunity to succeed across every phase of education. Disadvantaged boys and young men face some of the steepest barriers to success. Over £28 million has been committed to drive standards in reading and writing, particularly for those who need the most support, including boys who underperform in English. That is alongside the National Year of Reading in 2026. The campaign is aimed at everyone, because the decline in reading enjoyment is an issue across all sectors of society. However, there is a focus on boys aged 10 to 16, parents from disadvantaged communities, and other priority groups.
A number of Members spoke about the importance of boys having positive male role models. I agree entirely about the importance of that, but we do need to be careful not to stray into criticising what types of families can bring up brilliant boys. The hon. Member for Strangford rightly said that women can be brilliant role models too. I want to be really clear from the Dispatch Box that single mums can bring up brilliant boys, just as my wife and I can bring up brilliant boys.
Tessa Munt
Does the Minister believe that men can bring up children really well as well?
Olivia Bailey
I absolutely do, and I thank the hon. Member for that important intervention.
Role models begin in schools, which is why it is important that we address the under-representation of men across the education workforce. Although this is broadly in line with international trends, we want to see more male teachers in our classrooms and in other education settings. To attract more men into teaching and address barriers, we ensure that men are featured regularly in the teacher recruitment marketing campaign “Every Lesson Shapes a Life”, with men in the focal role in its last two TV campaigns. The campaign to promote early years careers has also produced new adverts specifically to target men.
Outside of education, too many young men today are struggling with loneliness, and we know the devastating consequences that that can have for both their mental health and our communities. Our plans for improving social connection and reducing loneliness are embedded across Government policy, including through the national youth strategy and the men’s health strategy. The Government are also investing more than £300,000 to help Rugby League Cares give boys and young men a renewed sense of community, purpose and belonging.
A number of other comments were made in the debate. I am conscious of time, but the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire talked about homelessness and the criminal justice system. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich talked about the role of family hubs, and today I was in a fantastic family hub in Camden, where staff talked to me about the work they are doing with fathers, which is really exciting and a key part of our work moving forward.
The hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills asked for an update on the parental leave review. The review will run for approximately 18 months, but I will be happy to follow up in writing if she would like further details.
Mims Davies
The Minister has rightly outlined strategies and different strands across Government. Could she set out whether there those strategies are driving at any particular outcomes, including around young offenders and other areas, so that we can track whether they are having the desired outcomes in our constituencies?
Olivia Bailey
I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention. I point back to the work the Deputy Prime Minister is doing, as well as to the summit the Prime Minister will be doing later this year.
In conclusion, I thank again all hon. Members who have spoken in today’s important debate. Whether as role models, allies or mentors, men can inspire and encourage us all. As we celebrate the wonderful contributions that men and boys make to their families, schools, communities and workplaces, we must work together to help them tackle the challenges they face in life. It is clear that Members across the House share our goal of making sure that men and boys are given the support they need.
Dr Evans
I think it was the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) who asked, “Where to start?”. Well, today has been a jolly good place, with cross-party support. She also talked about a journey; a journey starts with the first footstep, and we have certainly had that today.
I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for pointing out that this is not a hidden problem, and we can no longer pretend that it is. This is something that must be talked about, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson—the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt)—and the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) talked specifically about the work, education and data that will drive that. I think that that is imperative. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) also raised the Union aspect, which it is hugely important to consider, because this problem goes across all four countries.
I also thank both chairs of the APPG, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), for what they do and for driving this topic forward not just in this Chamber, but outside it.
To conclude, if men truly are from Mars, and women truly are from Venus, I believe that this House and this Government have a duty to support, translate and govern the whole solar system—not just one planet.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the potential merits of appointing a Minister for Men and Boys.
Energy Developers Levy
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential merits of a levy on energy developers.
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. On the Suffolk coast, communities and nature are facing a stack of separate, fast-moving nationally significant infrastructure projects. Those are new generation, multiple offshore wind grid connecters, major transmission reinforcement, multi-purpose interconnectors and Europe’s largest energy project, Sizewell C. As we speak, we have six NSIPs being built or seeking consent in a small, 10-mile radius of my constituency of Suffolk Coastal. Each has been planned separately, but the impacts are felt cumulatively.
I find it absurd that our planning system still examines proposals project by project, and developers are not required by law to co-ordinate. My community is expected to host multiple billion-pound schemes simultaneously, without any statutory tools or funding to force or enforce co-ordination between developers. I need to say that, since I have been raising the profile of this problem, Ofgem has been leading co-ordination meetings with those NSIPs, but Ofgem’s role is only to chair those meetings. There is no statutory obligation to make them happen, and they have come about only because of increased pressure about the need for better co-ordination.
Some improvements have happened because of those meetings, and that is welcome, but we need to go much further. Co-ordination between NSIPs, when they operate in the same area, should be enshrined in law. That is precisely why I tabled new clause 33 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which would have placed a legal duty on energy developers in the same area to share information, co-ordinate and co-operate on design and construction, and take responsible steps to reduce cumulative impacts.
As I have said before, the failure we are experiencing in Suffolk Coastal is because the previous Conservative Government totally vacated the leadership space when it came to our country’s energy and biodiversity planning. Energy developers filled that void. The Conservative Government sat back and allowed developers to take the lead and introduce proposals for totally unsuitable landscapes, all because it was cheaper than developing on brownfield sites. We have been left with a series of unco-ordinated whack-a-mole projects on the Suffolk coast. There is no brownfield-first strategy, no shared corridor strategy, no binding requirement to co-ordinate construction schedules, no mechanism to prevent the same land being dug up twice and no requirement to look at, or assess, the cumulative impact on nature and the environment.
It is not just me saying this. The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee report, “Gridlock or growth? Avoiding energy planning chaos”, highlighted the need for more strategic co-ordination in environmental impact assessments. It warned of “unnecessary costs and delays” from that “project-by-project approach”. The environmental impacts are assessed separately rather than cumulatively at habitat or seascape scale. In other words, communities in Suffolk Coastal are experiencing a national problem playing out locally, and that is exactly why I am calling for legislation to fix it.
The Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), agrees that it is completely crazy when construction is not co-ordinated. He sees the real need to apply that to not just energy companies but utilities digging up roads and pavements for repairs, or maintenance of gas, electricity and water, and construction projects. The Minister for Energy has previously acknowledged, publicly in debates and privately to me in meetings, that he agrees with me. He believes it is a source of deep regret that the previous Government did not do more to properly co-ordinate the huge build-out of new and important infrastructure. He has challenged me before that the statutory co-ordination I am seeking requires investment. That is a fair challenge. My response is a proposal to meet that challenge by setting out my proposed energy infrastructure co-ordination levy.
In simple terms, that is a levy payable by energy NSIP applicants, designed to fund cumulative planning, shared mitigation and co-ordinated delivery in host communities. It would apply to all energy NSIPs across generation, transmission and interconnectors. The payment would be triggered in two stages: a small amount when the application is accepted for examination, and the main payment when the development consent order is granted.
The levy would be calculated using a hybrid model reflecting real impact drivers: a base rate per gigawatt capacity; a base rate per kilometre of onshore cable; a base rate per substation or converter station; and a cap and a floor to ensure proportionality. That aligns cost with scale and disruption, not simply capital expenditure. Crucially, the funds will be ringfenced locally—that is really important.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
I really appreciate the hon. Member’s having secured this important debate, as we have issues very similar to Suffolk Coastal’s in Caerfyrddin and west Wales in general. A levy is really important for cumulative planning and mitigation. I would also add that there are tangible benefits for our communities, such as public transport and affordable homes. Those are things that we do not have in rural communities, but which a levy could support. Does the hon. Member agree that that is the way forward—not the piecemeal dribs and drabs that companies are offering us?
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter
I am looking forward to the Minister’s response, but I agree that the whack-a-mole strategy, which I have talked about, needs far better strategic oversight.
A dedicated energy co-ordination fund for affected host areas would be established and delivered through a locally accountable team. That is important, because all too often developers are headquartered elsewhere; they do not live in the areas with the repeated traffic disruption and the cumulative land take. Local institutions— the local council, for instance—must have the capacity to co-ordinate what developers currently are not required to.
The fund would support four priorities: shared modelling and evidence; design co-ordination, such as corridor planning and joint construction scheduling; strategic mitigation for nature, such as landscape-scale habitat restoration and long-term management funding; and the community impact reduction—stronger traffic enforcement and transparent liaison, for example.
Alongside that, there should be a statutory co-ordination board, independently chaired, that could set binding co-ordination objectives that applicants would have to respond to in their DCO documentation. Some may argue that the existing DCO obligations already address that issue; I tell Members explicitly that they do not. There is no statutory requirement for co-ordination between NSIPs.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this debate forward. I spoke to her beforehand; she is certainly making a name for herself in this place for being assiduous and hard working. Does she agree that the consumer cannot afford greater cost-of-living increases through energy prices and that any levy cannot simply be handed on to the consumer, bearing in mind that energy costs are still a third higher than they were five years ago?
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter
I thank the hon. Member for his well-timed intervention; I have that heard said before and was just coming to that issue. I suspect that the Minister may have similar concerns. As the hon. Member points out, there may be concerns that a levy would increase consumer bills. That grates on me given that the National Grid reported an adjusted operating profit of £2.29 billion for the six months ending 30 September last year.
Let us be clear. This is not about asking bill payers to shoulder more of the burden; it is about asking developers, when they are developing multibillion-pound investments and returning substantial profits, to absorb a proportionate cost and ensure co-ordination.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The hon. Member has really come to the nub of the matter: the energy companies that are building and installing the renewable capacity are making a lot of money out of it. In my constituency, there are turbines whose owners are being paid for not generating anything, while we have the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country. Does that not speak to the fact that we need wholesale reform of the way the energy market is regulated?
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter
I thank the right hon. Gentleman; I am sure that the Minister will address that issue, which has long been talked about.
I was discussing the incredible profits that the energy developers are making. For me, this issue is about simple fairness: those creating the disruption and generating the return should fund the systems to manage the cumulative impact. More importantly—most importantly, perhaps—what I am suggesting would not lead to higher bills. Proper co-ordination would reduce bills: reduce the duplication, prevent redesign and avoid the need for repeated construction and legal conflict. Proper co-ordination saves money. This is not anti-growth, but smarter and inclusive growth.
Suffolk Coastal must not become the unmanaged frontier of energy development. So many in my constituency are pro-net zero, pro-investment and pro-growth, but we are asking the Government to be pro-co-ordination. What we have now is a fragmented planning system and eroding trust in the energy transition that we all support. If we are serious about delivering clean energy power at pace, we must treat host communities as partners, not afterthoughts, in that transition. We must do more to bring communities with us.
I am asking two things of the Minister today: first, a meeting with officials to examine this proposal; and secondly, a departmental feasibility study into the merits of an energy infrastructure co-ordination levy and how that could support both growth and nature recovery. The Government have already consulted on mandatory community benefits for low carbon energy infrastructure. The question now is whether we go further—by creating a clear levy model that funds meaningful co-ordination between clustered projects, such as those on the Suffolk coast; that builds local accountability and capacity; and that provides independent oversight, delivering tangible community and environmental mitigation. Communities such as mine are not asking for less ambition. We ask simply for better co-ordination when projects are approved.
If we get this issue right, we can deliver the green revolution in a way that communities support, nature benefits from and the country can be proud of.
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
It is a pleasure to join this debate under your chairship, Mr Twigg; I know that you take a great interest in these issues. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) for securing the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was right: my hon. Friend is making a name for herself as a hard worker in this space. Our meetings about this issue have been genuinely really helpful and insightful for me—and her as well, I hope. She is right to flag these issues.
I should also say at the outset that I genuinely welcome the tone that my hon. Friend has taken since she has become MP for Suffolk Coastal. In this place at this time, it is very easy to take the view that the easy answer is simply to say that we should not build anything anywhere ever again and let the country continue to slide further and further backwards; many on the Opposition Benches, who of course are not here at all, would say that.
My hon. Friend concluded her speech by saying something worth repeating: many in her community and across the country are pro the energy transition—they are pro-investment, pro-growth and pro-building the infrastructure—but they rightly want to know that that will be well planned and benefit their community. It is entirely legitimate for communities to ask for that and to be concerned when it does not happen. Given that spirit, she has raised this debate in the right way.
I want to pick up on a couple of things and also go back to why the infrastructure is so important in the first place. We sometimes lose sight of why it is so important for us to build energy infrastructure—in particular, much of the transmission infrastructure that is in my hon. Friend’s constituency. She said that the previous Government had not done that work, and I will come back to that.
It is worth remembering that since this Government came to power we have sought to tackle the energy trilemma: how we bring down bills and make the cost of living more affordable—today’s decision on the price cap is an important statement of how seriously we take that mission; how we deliver our long-term energy security in an uncertain world and how we move away from the volatility of fossil fuels, which have cost us so dearly in recent years; and how we build infrastructure that sets the country up for the future. This is about connecting not just renewable energy but the demand projects that will stimulate economic growth across the country. If we do not do these things, all we will do is harm that economic growth. Those decisions are incredibly important.
Mr Carmichael
I urge the Minister to learn from the experience of Shetland and Sullom Voe, 50 years ago. We took the most important step on North sea oil and gas coming ashore in Shetland, but on our terms: there was a genuine funding stream coming to the community. If we give the whip hand to the corporates, they will always use it to their benefit.
Michael Shanks
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point; a generation of lobbyists should look back at the history books of Shetland Islands council at the time, because it is an extraordinary story of how it seized the opportunity of what it knew then would be decades North sea oil and gas and has still benefited from it.
I was also going to come to the right hon. Gentleman’s other point, around the Viking wind farm, which I have seen in the Shetlands myself. The scale of it is extraordinary, but the community benefits are not where they should be and the community is not feeling enough of the benefit of it. It is important that we do everything we can to reduce the constraints on wind, so that local communities benefit directly from it and the country as a whole benefits from cheaper power on the grid, bringing down bills.
Let me turn to some of the actions that we have taken since we came into government. We have set up Great British Energy—a really important moment for us to say, for the first time in 70 years, that we want the public to have some ownership stake in our energy future. We have delivered the most significant programme of investment in home-grown clean energy in our history. Just a few weeks ago, we published the local power plan, the biggest shift of wealth and power in the energy space in British history, to make sure that energy projects are not just built by developers, but owned by local communities that have a real stake in their energy future. We also published the warm homes plan, so that we can have the biggest upgrade to homes in British history.
Any infrastructure, in the energy space or elsewhere, brings local impacts, and there is no point in anyone pretending that those impacts do not upset local people. That is why we have an extremely rigorous planning system, why we take great care over decisions that are made and why, at times, there is great frustration about the length of time it takes for planning decisions. However, that is because the public rightly have a voice in that process, and important determinations should take time. We should always remember the fundamental outcome: since the poorest in our society have paid the price from our exposure to fossil fuels, the infrastructure we are building today is imperative, and it is important that we move faster than ever before.
My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal and I have talked about cumulative impact before, and I have said repeatedly in the House that it is a serious issue. All nationally significant infrastructure projects must take account of cumulative impact, including the range of those cumulative impacts—not just the number of projects in a particular place, but the impact on other local services and other bits of infrastructure. They must submit a local impact report, which makes the examining authority aware of what those potential impacts are. That process must demonstrate that the applicant has taken seriously the concerns of local communities. If they have not, that will count against them. Consultation cannot be an exercise to tick a box; there must be some demonstrable engagement with that process. Local communities have a voice in that process through early consultations, but they can also register through the Planning Inspectorate in the pre-examination stage. All those various issues are taken into consideration.
Let me also speak to the broader point about how we plan the future energy system. My hon. Friend made a correct observation: while the previous Government now want to run a mile from all the renewable energy projects that they developed, which we would support— I think I am the only person still cheerleading the previous Government’s drive for renewable energy, because they certainly are not—they did not design and co-ordinate the system such that we were not building unnecessary grid to connect all those projects. My hon. Friend’s constituency is a good example of where better co-ordination at a strategic level would have got the same outputs from the system, but with much less local impact.
We are taking forward a number of things—this is where we get into the acronym soup that is the energy world. First, and most importantly, the National Energy System Operator will design the first ever strategic spatial energy plan, or SSEP, which will be published by the end of next year. This is an important opportunity for us to design the future of our energy system holistically: to take into account what can be built where and what the future energy system looks like for our needs, not now, but in the future. As a result of that planning, we can design the most efficient network and transmission system that goes with it. The centralised strategic network plan, which will be the holistic design of the network, will follow that. This is something that we should have done 15 or 20 years ago, but we start from where we are now, and we are determined that the future of our energy system will be much more strategically planned and aligned.
That plan will take into account local impacts and views, and the regional energy plans in particular will take a much more granular and local look, engaging with local authorities and others to make sure that those plans really take into account both local needs and local opportunities. Those will be designed for Scotland, Wales and nine English regions, and we will bring together various people to share their views on how the plans should meet local priorities. I want to be really clear about the scale of that work. The reason why the Government are taking longer than perhaps we would like is that that is the best way to plan long into the future what the system will look like, and to give communities a real opportunity to shape it at an early stage. That is important for the planning of the system and for community benefits, which other Members have raised.
It is really important that we fundamentally recognise that communities who host energy infrastructure are doing a service for the country. Infrastructure has to be built somewhere. There is not some third place that would let us say, “Well, we are in favour of this, but please don’t build it in my area.” At some point, it has to go somewhere; as a Government, we are done with dither and delay and we are going to build things again, but communities should get a benefit from that infrastructure being built. We are committed to making sure that communities who host infrastructure will benefit. As my hon. Friend said, we have consulted on whether community benefits should be made mandatory—at the moment, they are voluntary and a patchwork across the country, and they have different degrees of impact on communities, even where the funding is being delivered—and we will respond to that consultation soon.
In the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, we have also outlined the very first community benefits and bill discounts for people close to transmission infrastructure, recognising that often they have been left behind in terms of community benefits, as pylons and transmission wires flow through communities. That scheme will be up and running soon. It will directly deliver money off bills for those people living within 500 metres of new transmission infrastructure, but also millions of pounds of investment in communities next to significant pieces of transmission infrastructure such as substations. The grid is critical for the future of the country, and those who host grid infrastructure should get some benefit from that. In July last year, we also published guidance on voluntary community benefits to make sure that they are as robust as they can be.
My hon. Friend mentioned a levy, and I am happy to meet her to discuss that further. I pay tribute to the fact that, having identified a problem, instead of just bringing that problem to the House—I do not want to criticise other hon. Members here—she has worked on a solution. I am happy to engage with it and to look at it further.
There are two things that I want to say clearly. First, the affordability crisis is this Government’s No. 1 objective. It is driving decisions right across Government. It is what has led to a 7% reduction in bills from the next price cap period, which was announced today. Every single penny that might find its way on to bills has to be scrutinised very carefully. I am initially hesitant at the idea of an additional levy. Although my hon. Friend made the point that these energy companies are making significant profits, and I would not disagree with her on the scale of some of those profits, we should also be aware that, unless the Government are going to take a power to cap those profits, it is likely that the cost of a levy and the costs of the projects themselves would simply be passed on. Consumers, at the end of the day, would pay for it. I will look into her suggestion further, because every penny on bills makes a difference.
Finally, on section 106 agreements, in addition to community benefits arrangements locally, developers are already required to mitigate specific local impacts through 106 agreements. They are legally binding agreements that are paid to local authorities. With section 106 agreements and community benefits together, we think work is being done to invest in and enhance communities, but I am happy to look at what my hon. Friend has proposed in more detail.
To conclude, I reiterate two things. First, my thanks not only to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal, but to right hon. and hon. Members across the House who made serious points and suggestions on how not to turn away from necessary investment, but to ensure that communities genuinely benefit from it. They are absolutely right to champion their local community and to ensure that everyone benefits from the energy transition. Secondly, we should not for a moment think that building that infrastructure is optional, or that it can all be done somewhere else. There are those in this House who believe that we can simply go backwards to deliver energy security and affordability without a serious and credible plan to do so, but simply tying communities to fossil fuels for longer is not a serious proposition.
I reiterate what I said at the beginning. My hon. Friend rightly made the case that all the polling that we have seen points to the country being in favour of the energy transition. Every piece of research points to the importance of tackling the climate crisis, which is not a future threat, but a very present reality. Infrastructure, which for too long has been held up in this country, is necessary to do that. It is necessary to get clean power, cheaper power, to people’s homes and businesses, and to bring down bills, but it is also absolutely necessary to unlock the economic growth that this country needs. There is no shortcut to doing that. We have to build the infrastructure that the country has been crying out for, for many years.
I thank hon. Members for their participation in the debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal. I am happy to meet her to discuss the issues further. As I said at the beginning, we take seriously the role that communities play. We thank them for putting up with disruption when infrastructure is built, and for hosting that infrastructure on behalf of the country. We want to ensure that they benefit from it.
Question put and agreed to.
UK-German Relations
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered UK-German relations.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I requested that this debate take place today because tomorrow the German Bundestag will have its first reading in ratifying the Kensington treaty. That treaty is an important step in rebuilding our relationship with Germany after the post-Brexit negativity from the previous Government. The relationship has a long and difficult history but in times of increased international pressure it is more important than ever. In that regard, it is a pleasure to welcome the German ambassador Susanne Baumann as well as Anne Finger Harries and her team to the debate.
My personal connections with Germany date back to a childhood pen friend from Essen, who I began writing to over 50 years ago—we are still in touch. Later, when I was in my 20s, I went to Germany to train as an electrical engineer with AG Telefunken, working in the Frankfurt area. Like many others, I took advantage of an opportunity to live and work in Germany that is not available to young people today because of the folly of Brexit. Today, there are around 6,780 people from Germany studying in the UK and 2,074 Brits studying in Germany. However, they are students, not workers with freedom of movement, so it is a different scenario nowadays.
Across the United Kingdom there are twinning agreements between German and British towns and cities, not least in my own constituency, which is paired with the town of Recklinghausen in Nordrhein-Westfalen in Germany. That partnership will celebrate its 70th anniversary this year. Naturally, relationships of this sort have their ups and downs; in recent history, Brexit stands out. That decision and the way it was conducted severely damaged people-to-people trust; it has weakened longstanding partnerships in private, public and economic affairs and made cross-border trade much more difficult, particularly trade conducted by small and medium-sized enterprises. It will, in my view, take a long time to mend the damage caused by Brexit. It is also a reminder that trust, once lost, is slow and difficult to rebuild.
Across British society, there is a wish for a closer relationship with the EU and with Germany. Recent polling shows that close to 60% of Britons believe that it was a mistake to leave the European Union, and shows that the majority of voters want to rejoin the EU. Despite increased travel restrictions, more than 70 million trips were made by Britons to Europe, close to 1 million of which were made to Germany.
In Parliament, the work of the all-party parliamentary group on Germany brings together politicians and stakeholders from both countries. To do that effectively, we work closely with our counterpart in the German Bundestag: the German-British friendship group. That allows us to bring politicians from both countries together to discuss shared priorities and projects and organise parallel debates such as this one. In that regard, I look forward to the UK parliamentary delegation’s visit to Germany, which is planned for May.
The momentum towards a closer Europe that is felt among Britons and in Parliament is also driven forward by this Labour Government. From our first day in office, we have worked on rebuilding our relationship with our European partners, be that through rejoining the Erasmus+ scheme, which gives young people across the UK and EU the opportunity to study and train on either side of the channel, or through the range of bilateral and multilateral agreements that this Government have signed and which lay out the road maps to further collaboration.
For example, the signing of the Trinity House agreement in October 2024 represents the most significant deepening of bilateral defence ties with Germany in decades. It signifies our commitment to European defence and especially to working in close accord with Germany. We are strengthening joint defence capabilities through a range of measures, such as committing to collaboration on big defence projects in, for example, aerospace. That was underlined by the first state visit by a German President in 27 years last December. President Steinmeier visited following the signing of the Kensington treaty, which defines six main areas of co-operation. They are all of paramount importance, but in this speech I want to focus on defence and economic co-operation. In the light of international instability, these seem to be the most pressing areas for this relationship.
Last week’s Munich security conference showed the strength of and commitment to a shared European defence. As the Prime Minister outlined in his keynote speech, in a crisis such as the current one, we have to stand together. We are doing that through agreements such as the Trinity House agreement and the Kensington treaty.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. One of the most important areas for UK-German security co-operation is in tackling the full range of threats that Russia exposes us to as Europeans. It is very clear from discussions with German colleagues and others that we need a better doctrine on that and one that includes sharing information, attributing the attacks that are happening weekly across Europe and deterring them through a co-ordinated response. Does my hon. Friend agree that we can work on that bilaterally and through the triad with France, and use the lessons we learn to improve our partnership working across Europe as a whole?
Sir Mark Hendrick
I totally concur with my hon. Friend, who has had a distinguished military career in the RAF.
As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent horrors, there is growing awareness in the UK that we need to be able to defend ourselves and that it is not enough to contract our security out to the United States. This means that there is no British security without Europe and no European security without Britain. Partnership with Europe, but specifically with Germany, is delivering on that growing awareness.
Through the coalition of the willing, Germany, Great Britain and France have a wish to drive forward the defence of Ukraine, and yesterday we commemorated the fourth year since the start of the war. Utilising the DIAMOND—delivering integrated air and missile operational networked defences—initiative, the UK and Germany, along with other NATO allies, are bolstering NATO’s eastern flank and building an alliance ready to defend itself. Our shared values and the ideas defining that relationship are not universal and the knowledge that they might need to be defended by force has driven that paradigm shift. In Germany, we have a partner on whom we can rely, come what may. That is why the Kensington treaty is so important. It sets in stone the indispensability of this relationship and how we can further develop co-operation between our two countries.
I come now to the subject of economic co-operation. The other important aspect of this relationship is our trading and economic partnership. Germany is the UK’s second largest trading partner, closely following the United States. Trade to Germany accounts for 8.1% of total British trade, and after the low of Brexit, bilateral trade is improving, with a 1.4% increase in trade last year. The German Chamber of Commerce and Industry has more than 1,600 German member companies operating in the UK. They include industry giants such as BMW, Bosch and Deutsche Bank. About 160 of my constituents work in the German company Krempel, which is located very close to my constituency. German companies bring £50 billion of foreign direct investment into the UK, while British companies invested over £40 billion in Germany last year alone. That important relationship can be seen in much of our day-to-day life. For instance, the 94 new state-of-the-art Piccadilly line trains are produced by Siemens Mobility in East Yorkshire. That is a great example of our partnership in action, combining German engineering with British craftsmanship.
The numbers convey a larger picture: the flow of products and ideas; the connection between small family-run businesses in both countries; the co-operation of industry that employs tens of thousands; and a synergy that is not only mutually beneficial but actively combines the greatest parts of our two countries.
In conclusion, the Kensington treaty is more than a diplomatic document; it is a recognition of what we already know: Britain and Germany are bound together by history, values and commerce, and a shared vision of a stable and prosperous Europe. From the twinning of our towns to the trains on our underground, from our students crossing the channel to our soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, this relationship is alive in the daily fabric of both our nations. Brexit was a serious setback, and we should not pretend otherwise, but it did not sever the ties that matter most, and this Government are working hard to rebuild what was damaged.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
It is such a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) for securing this debate and to others who have supported it. As he says, it is taking place during a very important week: of the ratification in the Bundestag of the Kensington treaty.
I associate myself with many of my hon. Friend’s remarks, particularly those on town twinning, because the link between my city of Oxford and Bonn has been incredibly strong. It has gone from strength to strength, and it has involved local politicians, including myself. We have enduring friendships—including across party lines—between our two countries. It has included young football players from the council estate that I call my home, Rose Hill; in Bonn, they very much enjoyed the football, the friendship, and the Haribo factory visit.
I want to underline three areas where the collaboration between our two countries is particularly important, given the current circumstances. First, I underline what my hon. Friend said about industrial linkages. In my constituency, we see just how important they are. My hon. Friend mentioned BMW, which runs the Cowley Mini plant. That is a source of immense pride for my local community, provides good-quality jobs and supports a huge supply chain associated with those direct roles. It is an incredibly productive plant, and it is important that, wherever possible, we reduce barriers to joint working between our two countries when it comes to the kind of amazing advanced manufacturing taking place in Cowley.
I am encouraged by the fact that UK Ministers have spoken with their German counterparts about the European Commission’s “Made in Europe” plans. I hope that we can go further on that. The European Union’s desire to ensure that there is economic security is understandable, but it is important that that does not lead to a reduction in trade between the UK and EU—indeed, we need to increase trade. I have been encouraged by what I have heard in that regard, including on automotives and making sure that the UK is not cut out of those processes. I urge the Government to press ahead on that and the other measures that they have announced on energy costs, for example, which are important for a lot of the manufacturing in places such as BMW Cowley.
Secondly, I want to underline some points that are germane to those mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey). He talked about the fact that both our countries are currently experiencing exactly the same kinds of hybrid threats. This week of all weeks, four years after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, we are seeing similar patterns of foreign interference, including sabotage and online disinformation, often sponsored by Russia. The Representation of the People Bill is now progressing through the UK Parliament and we have Philip Rycroft’s review of foreign interference. It will be important that there is collaboration between our two countries in that regard so that we can learn together.
I am aware of what happened in the run up to the German election. This is not a partisan point, because I understand that some of the sabotage was directed at trying to discredit the Green party there. There were also attacks on critical infrastructure with unclear attribution—as there so often is in these cases. As we are in these difficult waters, we need to see collaboration between democracies such as the UK and Germany on such matters.
Article 17 of the Kensington treaty is especially relevant here:
“The Parties shall cooperate on strategies for strengthening the resilience of their democracies in order to build resilient societies which are able to contribute to their countries’ security and to withstand the increasing attempts of interference and manipulation.”
I also welcome the treaty talking about deepening co-operation against all forms of hate crime, which, again, disturbingly, we are seeing in both of our nations.
Finally, I underline the welcome mention in the 11th lighthouse project under the Kensington treaty of working together on conflict prevention and committing both of our countries to strengthen joint work on the women, peace and security agenda. That will require engagement across our Governments, not just in our Foreign Ministries, where I know that there are very strong relationships, but in our Ministries of Defence. It would be helpful to understand more about what is being done in that regard. I thoroughly hope that the strong relationship between the UK and Germany can only become stronger in the years to come, and it is such a pleasure to speak in this debate.
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
I am going to call the Front Benchers no later than 5.10 pm, so could Members keep their speeches to around five minutes?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg—it is the third time today. I thank the hon. Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) for setting the scene incredibly well. I am also pleased to see the Minister in his place. He has, if I may say so, been a very busy boy today in the Chamber and Westminster Hall, and it is always a genuine pleasure to see him in his place.
Germany is a high-value market for Northern Ireland, with bilateral trade generating over £1.1 billion in 2023. That being the case, the Northern Ireland Economy Minister frequently visits Berlin to promote sectors such as cyber-security, fintech, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing—all sectors that Northern Ireland excels in. As our biggest EU trading partnership, relations are imperative to our local economy. The Minister probably knows this already, but building upon that is really important for us.
I got to know Germany personally through my time as a part-time soldier in the Royal Artillery. That gave me an opportunity to go to Germany every second year and meet its people. I was always impressed by the people, who were always friendly and amenable. Germany was incredibly clean. It was back in the time of the iron curtain, which will age me—some people will ask what that was. However, that was the Germany that I knew and got to love.
Indeed, Invest NI, which is a branch of the Northern Ireland Executive, has maintained a presence in Germany for over 25 years to facilitate trade. Recent successes include Belfast-based Joulen securing a £4 million AI contract with German energy firm SonneNext. The links are clearly there, but it is equally clear that more can and should be achieved through them.
As people would expect, I am going to heavily promote Northern Ireland. It is an investor’s dream with low business costs and rates, greater connectivity, a highly skilled workforce and a great work ethic. It is little wonder that so many US firms are beginning to establish themselves in Northern Ireland. It is my feeling that our relationship with Germany can provide greater benefits to both the Germans and ourselves. The July 2025 UK-Germany treaty on friendship and bilateral co-operation provides a new framework for deeper partnership, particularly in defence and aerospace. As many Members will be aware, Northern Ireland’s aerospace and defence industry, which employs some 9,000 people, can benefit from the treaty’s emphasis on long-term industrial and security co-operation. That is something that we can build on. We can increase that because the threat in the world is high, and it is necessary that we do so.
Machinery and transport equipment is the largest export category, valued at approximately £252.9 million in 2024. That includes power-generating machinery and specialised industrial equipment. The contacts and the connection between Northern Ireland and Germany are strong, and they can be stronger. Our highly skilled, precision-focused engineers are able to deliver more, and it is essential that we keep on top of cutting-edge technology and training for staff.
The Minister may well highlight that the Northern Ireland Economy Minister is aware of the need to enhance the German relationship, but much can and must be done here at Westminster, the foundation of which needs to be funding for apprenticeships. That is my ask of the Minister: the funding for apprenticeships to keep Northern Ireland’s reputation for highly-skilled workers going, growing and strong.
In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for Preston for this opportunity to speak on the need for a mutually beneficial relationship with Germany that we can all benefit from. I agree that we need that, but foundationally we need to ensure that we have the skills and the ability to attract investment. I very much look forward to greater apprenticeship investment to help us to realise our potential. Our young people in Northern Ireland have a future and an opportunity, and I think the Minister is the very person to deliver that.
Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I have been passionate about strengthening ties between the UK and Germany for most of my adult life, ever since I spent two years living in West Berlin in the mid-1980s—vor der Wende—before the wall came down. I lived in Kreuzberg, a neighbourhood that at that time was surrounded on three sides by the wall. It was an exhilarating, sometimes surreal, experience. It was a vibrant city, but also a cold war frontline, never far from the wall or the watchtowers beyond.
I remember having dinner at a neighbour’s flat on the evening of a 1 May street party that turned into a riot of car burning and looting sparked by a boycott of the national census. When we saw the sky suddenly light up, we thought at first that the riots had set a local supermarket ablaze. Then we realised it was East Berlin, and they were celebrating May day with fireworks, completely oblivious to what was happening just a couple of kilometres away. They were very different times.
Another memory I have from that time, which may seem a little bit odd—although perhaps not for an English politics geek, whose country lacks a written constitution—is discovering Germany’s proud basic law, the Grundgesetz, and learning about the role that Britain had played in bringing that into being. Germany is deep in my heart, as it is in the hearts of so many of my fellow citizens.
I have the pleasure of representing the constituency of Chelsea and Fulham, and Fulham is under the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which has long been twinned with the Berlin borough of Neukölln. I was very impressed, when we visited Neukölln, to see that it actually had the Hammersmith and Fulham crest in concrete at the front of their town hall, which shows a level of respect and seriousness towards local government that we can perhaps learn from.
Despite our strong relationship with Germany, we allowed something so precious to be damaged. After Brexit, the UK dropped from being Germany’s third most important trading partner to ninth, and German school exchanges to the UK fell by more than 80%. Our relationship did not break, but it was badly strained. We have to be honest about that, and be honest about the pain that we caused, not just to ourselves, but to the German side of our friendship.
That is why I am so moved by the enormous strides we are now making to restore and deepen our partnership with practical steps, as my colleagues have set out, that will benefit all our citizens. We are living in disturbing times. All of us recognise that—today perhaps more than any other day, after four years of the Ukraine war. The United States is retreating from Europe, Russia is a growing threat and the hard right is gaining ground, driving division across our continent, so I am glad that Britain and Germany have chosen to respond by moving closer together, not just in words but in deeds.
We have, as has been mentioned, the Trinity House agreements signed in October 2024, laying the foundation of establishing defence co-operation as a central pillar of our relationship. Under it, we have extraordinary things, such as British and German forces now operating together from Scotland to counter Russian submarines, flying jointly in maritime patrol aircraft, joint plans, including for purchase of advanced torpedoes, and growing real-time intelligence sharing. Very importantly, we are also ramping up cyber-security efforts to counter Russia’s hybrid warfare.
Mr Calvin Bailey
My hon. Friend is making a passionate and heartfelt speech about his relationship with Germany. In the cold world of national security, one important area for collaboration is cyber-security, and perhaps also AI, quantum and other areas. That is something that European democracies should have a shared approach towards, because these areas have typically been owned by our American allies. Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK and Germany need to work together to shape offensive cyber-operations and encourage fresh thinking about middle powers and how we seek to counter the Russian threat?
Ben Coleman
Not for the first time, my hon. Friend puts it much better than I could. Cyber-security is an absolutely key pillar of the Trinity House agreement, and AI, quantum and semiconductor investment should be things that Germany and Britain work on together, side by side, to defend our joint security and also contribute to the security of our common European home.
We had the Trinity House agreement, and then, last July, we had the good news of the Kensington treaty, signed by Chancellor Merz and the Prime Minister and, as we have heard, ratified in the Bundestag this week— a great moment. That landmark document is not just about defence but about foreign policy, the economy, innovation, energy, agriculture, education and science. It includes 17 concrete priority projects—not words, but deeds. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) mentioned the E3, the trilateral grouping of France, Britain and Germany, which the treaty also sets out to reinvigorate.
Beyond defence, I am glad to note that we are committed to developing offshore energy connections. Anyone who enjoys travelling to Germany, as I do, will also be delighted by the news that we are trying to build a direct rail connection between London and Germany in the next 10 years, which is terrific.
Of course, we also have the wider context, which has been referred to. The UK Government determined, from their first day, to reset the Brexit-damaged relationship with the European Union, and are making real progress in doing so. Germany has been absolutely central to that progress.
But the warmth of our friendship goes deeper than any treaty, as President Steinmeier showed when he visited us last December, making, as has been noted, the first state visit to Britain by a German Head of State in nearly three decades. His visit to the ruins of Coventry cathedral was a gesture of reconciliation that I think moved many of us deeply. I had the privilege of telling him personally how much his supportive words meant to us.
I cannot finish without noting that the spirit of partnership is embodied here in London by Ambassador Susanne Baumann and her team, who, I am delighted to say, are here with us today. She has thrown herself into her role with tremendous energy and commitment, building new relationships across our public life so speedily and with, I think we would all agree, warmth, intelligence and genuine dedication. I think our country is proud that we can count her as a friend.
To conclude, look at what we have achieved together in just one year; imagine what more we could do together. The task ahead is clear: if I may say so, Vorsprung durch Freundschaft—to work as friends with ambition and pace to protect and strengthen our two great countries, our proud democracies and our common European home.
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) on securing this important and timely debate. It is really good to have the Minister here covering another part of the world for a change, which I am sure he will appreciate.
Britain and Germany share one of Europe’s most significant bilateral relationships. It is grounded in common democratic values, strong economic ties and a shared commitment to European—and indeed global—security. That bilateral relationship continues to deepen, not only through NATO—I know, Mr Twigg, that you are very much at the forefront of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on behalf of our country, and that you will be working with your German counterparts in that regard—but also through other means: trade, research collaboration, climate policy and people to people connections.
Millions travel, study or work between our two countries every year. My personal relationship with Germany began 30-something years ago with a school exchange, and I still see that exchange partner, now my friend, every year in London or Hamburg. Hamburg is a city that has a strong history of Anglo-German relationships, whether through trade, the Navy or, more latterly, the Beatles.
We are now in a much more uncertain time, as other hon. Members have already suggested. In dangerous times, we need to come together more than ever. Germany and Britain have been doing that, but we need to commit that to words, so we can carry out the deeds we have talked about today.
The Kensington treaty is the most comprehensive of its kind between our two countries since the second world war, and I am proud that the Prime Minister and Chancellor Merz came to my Stevenage constituency later in the day on which they signed the treaty to visit Airbus Defence and Space UK headquarters. They did so for a good reason. At the heart of the treaty—one of its many priorities—is defence co-operation, and they could see that in Stevenage, where they saw the SATCOM military satellite communications system that is being built for the German armed forces. That highlights how Germany is choosing this country to deliver world-leading geo-satellite capability, demonstrating trust in our specialist strengths in space technology.
Mr Calvin Bailey
One of the high points of UK-German industrial relations was the Eurofighter Typhoon, so it is with great sadness that a young aircraft spotter, who enjoyed seeing Panavia developing something special like Eurofighter, is now observing the future combat air system and the global combat air programme growing apart. Rather than reflecting on that as a failure, could it not be an opportunity for collaboration, using a shared platform and shared Wingman success?
Kevin Bonavia
I hear my hon. Friend, who makes a salient argument. We have seen how some of our European neighbours, Germany and France, perhaps collaborate in a different way, and we will see whether that works out. I hope that the Minister will speak to his friends in the Ministry of Defence and the wider Government to offer to co-operate on more projects, such as the successful Eurofighter Typhoon project.
That is a powerful example of our industrial collaboration. Airbus, as the largest shareholder in the Eurofighter consortium—46%—and with its manufacturing in Germany, is only one piece of a much wider UK-German industrial ecosystem that spans aerospace, defence, energy, engineering and pharmaceuticals. I could go on.
We must look to the future as well. There are substantial opportunities in both space and air defence where British and German co-operation can meet shared capability needs and strengthen both our countries’ resilience. We need that more than ever, as other hon. Members have alluded to, given the threats that we face from Russia, China and beyond. More broadly, the ratification of the Kensington treaty gives us a clear framework to go further—from supply chain resilience to joint research and development, from green technology to defence innovation and from cyber-security to energy co-operation. Although I have not talked about it today, it also brings people together, and that is the most important bilateral relationship that any two countries can have.
For constituents such as mine in Stevenage and others across this country, these partnerships bring investment, skilled jobs and long-term industrial certainty, while contributing meaningfully to European security and global stability. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) stole the words I was going to use, which I thought of when I was thinking about “Vorsprung durch Technik” and those adverts we saw as kids. Really, it is Vorsprung durch Freundschaft und Partnerschaft.
Matt Turmaine (Watford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) for securing this important debate.
I want to make a few comments about the relationship between Watford and Mainz, Germany. There was a twinning relationship between our town and Mainz for many years, which had a successful history, with parties going to visit Germany from the UK and vice versa and all the benefits of that cultural and political exchange. Sadly, that relationship died when the local authority abandoned the twinning relationship some years ago, which was a great tragedy. Not content with that situation, however, dedicated people within my local Labour party and our sister party in Mainz, the SPD, fostered relations and restarted the exchange, with visits taking place between our two towns again.
That has had great effect: we have received delegations from the SPD in Mainz many times now, and we have exchanged culture and experience. We have taken them to the football and the capital, and we have explained to them in great detail the history of the brewing industry in Watford, which has been convivially enjoyed. There have been reciprocal visits to Mainz, which were incredible. It was great to learn about the history of that city and what happened, for example, during its experience of bombing in the second world war and the incredible job that was done to rebuild it as it looked before. We are lucky enough to have a representative from there in the Public Gallery today—welcome; it is great to see you.
I have personal experience of the exchange. I particularly enjoyed a trip through a vineyard on a tractor-drawn cart, where I had a bit of the wares created on that particular farm—that is, if my memory serves me correctly, which it probably does not. At Christmas we had the pleasure of hosting the MP for Mainz from the Bundestag, Daniel Baldy. We were able to show him how Parliament works and give him a tour, which was extremely beneficial.
Why do we do all that? The benefits are clear. Lots of Members have mentioned the trade, industry and scientific benefits that have been derived from the relationship, but there are human benefits as well. They include empathy, understanding, friendship and lessons learned—not just in industry and the economy, but in education around how we can improve our education system, and in politics around how we campaign politically and govern differently; hopefully they can bring benefits to all of us. I hope to make a return visit to Mainz in the near future.
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
The two Opposition spokespeople have about five minutes each.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) for securing this important and timely debate.
The Liberal Democrats believe that we are stronger, safer and more prosperous when we build serious, long-term partnerships with our European allies and colleagues. UK-German relations are a litmus test of our wider relationship with Europe. In an age of instability, we face an unpredictable US Administration, as we have already heard, and we have seen rising interference from the likes of China and continued Russian aggression. In that environment, defence and economic security become even more inseparable than they already were. That is why a closer and more pragmatic, productive and co-operative relationship with Germany is strategically imperative to us all.
Germany is Europe’s largest economy and one of the EU’s most influential states. Trade between the UK and Germany accounts for about 8.5% of UK trade, and supports nearly half a million jobs. I am lucky to have the UK headquarters of multiple offshoots of German companies in my Surrey Heath constituency, such as Stihl, the German manufacturer of chainsaws. My wife’s job is one of those nearly half a million jobs that I mentioned, working as she does for BMW in the neighbouring constituency of North East Hampshire. That is not intended to be a declaration of interest—it is merely a statement of fact—but I am very grateful to BMW for the electric Mini, which I am lucky enough to occasionally be allowed to drive.
The Kensington treaty, signed in July 2025, established a comprehensive framework for UK-German co-operation across defence, trade, climate, education and science, and that is undoubtedly the right direction of travel. However, a treaty is only as meaningful as its delivery.
Let me first turn to defence. At the Munich security conference, the Prime Minister called for deeper economic and security co-operation between the UK and the EU, and for a stronger expression of European hard power. At a time of heightened geopolitical tension, nobody can doubt that strengthening co-operation with Europe is firmly in Britain’s national interest. Securing full participation in the EU’s Security Action for Europe fund would undoubtedly support UK defence manufacturers and strengthen collective rearmament. Our partnership with Germany should support Ukraine’s recovery and deepen collaboration through the Trinity House agreement, with joint exercises, industrial co-ordination and capability development. If Britain wants influence over Europe’s defence architecture, it must be present where capability priorities are shaped.
On the economy, in 2015 the UK was Germany’s fifth largest trading partner, but by 2022 we had sadly fallen to 11th, reflecting the growing trade frictions between our two economies. In 2025, the Financial Times reported that German car manufacturer BMW had paused its £600 million investment in electric vehicles in Oxford. When advanced manufacturing decisions are finely balanced, as they so often are, added trade friction and regulatory divergence make the United Kingdom a less certain destination for investment.
The British Chamber of Commerce in Germany echoed those sentiments by warning that post-Brexit paperwork and border delays are pushing UK firms away from their largest export markets, with some customers turning to EU-based suppliers instead. If we are serious about restoring competitiveness, we must build trust and reduce those trade barriers. A bespoke EU-UK customs union might just stand a chance of easing some of those rules of origin burdens, lowering border costs and providing manufacturers with the certainty that they need.
Finally on cultural exchange—a topic that has frequently been raised in this debate—the Kensington treaty recognises that relationships are built not only by Governments but by young people and communities. The right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) mentioned town twinning. Not wanting to be left out of the excitement, I am very pleased to say that my Surrey Heath constituency is twinned with Bietigheim-Bissingen in Germany, and that our main popular shopping street is named Bietigheim Way, in reference to the historical connections between our two parts of the world. A UK-Germany youth summit and cross-border volunteering partnerships are absolutely critical, but so many of these programmes are vital for building long-term trust between our communities.
Three quarters of 18 to 24-year-olds voted to remain in the European Union in 2016, yet they are bearing many of the mobility costs that Brexit has imposed. They lost the freedom to study and work easily across Europe, including by participating in Erasmus, so we fundamentally welcome the UK rejoining the Erasmus scheme as a step towards rebuilding educational co-operation with Germany and across the rest of the EU. We are also calling for negotiations on a reciprocal EU youth mobility scheme with an age limit of 35, no visa fees and visas extended to three years to further and deepen that co-operation.
I again thank the hon. Member for Preston and other hon. Members for invoking the spirit of the UK-German relationship so effectively. We fundamentally believe that a closer relationship with Germany will strengthen our defence, support our economy and deepen cultural exchange.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick), on securing this important debate.
As we are going down the line of declaring interests or key products that we own, I too am a loyal customer of BMW and own one now. I realise that we will probably get some nasty emails from all the “buy British” campaigners, since we have declared our love for German cars. To pick up on the contribution of the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) on town twinning, I reassure her that it is okay to have Tory friends occasionally; if Labour party T-shirts are to be believed, you are just not allowed to kiss us. In the debate generally, that clear love for Germany, the relationships that people built up and the places that they enjoyed visiting really came across. I note that, as a proud Brexiteer, I am heavily outnumbered in this Chamber, although I was grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—he has now legged it—who is usually my Brexiteer bodyguard in Westminster Hall debates. Perhaps we will save that one for discussion over a litre or two of Weissbier.
Few bilateral relationships matter more to Britain’s security, prosperity and global standing than our partnership with Germany. This is a year of particular significance, as has been noted, but also marks 80 years since Britain founded North Rhine-Westphalia after the second world war, today Germany’s most populous state. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), the shadow Foreign Secretary, was pleased to meet the North Rhine-Westphalia International Affairs Minister in Munich earlier this month, along with the German Foreign Minister.
We Conservatives recognise that a confident Britain needs a confident, outward-looking Germany as a partner, and that a strong Germany and a strong Britain can be an anchor of stability at a time of global volatility. From a party political perspective, we are naturally pleased to see our sister party, the CDU/CSU, return to Government. Only last week, my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary attended the Munich security conference, where she met German counterparts from our sister party to reaffirm the depth of the UK-German relationship and our shared determination to strengthen European and transatlantic security.
Germany is now markedly stepping up its role in European and global security. The new federal Government have put significant resource behind defence and support for Ukraine. Germany’s 2026 budget includes a commitment to provide in excess of €11 billion in support to Ukraine, which is extremely welcome and will make a material difference on the ground. Politically, Berlin has taken steps to alter long-standing fiscal constraints so that it can fund the rearmament. The medium-term fiscal plan and recent constitutional adjustments reflect a willingness to unlock resources for defence in a way not seen for decades.
The way in which Germany is funding its defence rise is, of course, specific to its fiscal situation and the way it manages its economy and spending, which is different from the UK. That, however, raises some simple but urgent questions for our own Government as part of that relationship. If one of our closest allies can set a date and a credible trajectory for higher defence spending, why has the UK not done the same? Germany has been explicit about its political timetable for increasing defence spending. By contrast, here at home we are still waiting for the defence investment plan, which the Government told us was due last autumn and has now been repeatedly delayed.
In my constituency, I have a great defence manufacturing capability in BAE Systems, and I would like to see much more defence industrial collaboration across the board with Germany, made possible by the defence investment plan. With NATO allies, industry leaders and even senior military figures noting the strategic importance of clear spending pathways, can the Minister finally say when the defence investment plan will be published, and how it will ensure we meet our NATO ambitions?
The Conservatives in Government laid the foundations for the deepening of UK-German co-operation, in particular on defence: the 2024 defence declaration, the Trinity House arrangements on defence and industrial co-operation, and the long-range precision missiles are of significance. Will the Government publish a clear timetable for delivering against those commitments and the commitments set out in the 2025 Kensington treaty? What progress has been made to date, and what should we expect to see in the coming weeks and months?
Britain and Germany can together anchor European security in an unpredictable world. The Opposition want that partnership to flourish and will support steps that deepen it, but we will also insist that the British Government match their own rhetoric with credible resource plans. Only then will a strong Germany and a strong UK translate ambition into the hard capabilities required.
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
I remind the Minister to allow a minute or so at the end for Sir Mark to wind up.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) for securing the debate and for the contributions from other hon. Friends, hon. and gallant Friends and hon. Members. I am grateful to see the German ambassador and so many friends from Germany here to see the debate.
I am not the Minister for Germany. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) is on his feet in the Chamber at the moment and would have been only too glad to have attended this debate. I am pleased that it gives me the opportunity to reflect, as many others have with great warmth, on my personal and constituency relationship with Germany.
As someone who has done a fair bit of Parliament over the course of the day, I reflect that this debate reflects that warmth in which Germany is held across the House, regardless of political party. I know that the proceedings of this House are not always easily understandable to our foreign friends, but I hope all those watching in Germany can see the deep affection with which they are held here. I personally feel that affection. Throughout my time at university I lived with a young man called Johannes from Frankfurt. I am incredibly proud to represent a city that has a deep twinning relationship and is home to Siemens Energy and Siemens Mobility. If their representatives are watching, they are welcome to keep the full extent of their investments in Lincoln. They employ more than 2,100 people locally and have invested around £100 million in sites across Lincoln since 2010. Lincoln’s experience is obviously matched by many constituencies across the country.
My city, along with many places in the UK, has benefited from shared British-German industrial expertise in a deep partnership. As MP for a city that considers itself the home of the Royal Air Force, I agree very much with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) about the depth of the industrial partnership we have had over a range of areas, not least aviation. The Royal Air Force has particularly enjoyed that deep partnership on Eurofighter Typhoons.
I will not recap in great detail the important points colleagues have made. It is unusual as a Minister to be reminded so often of the many contributions that the Government have already made on these questions. I agree, unusually, with the shadow Minister that we built on foundations of deep friendship from the previous Government. The Kensington treaty is a landmark in an unpredictable time for world politics. The British-German partnership is ever more important and is key to advancing our shared values and interests. We were so pleased to take relations to a new level with the Kensington treaty signed last July. We consider it a modern and ambitious framework for the decades ahead. It touches on things that matter to both countries: keeping people safe, growing our economies, managing migration, backing education and clean energy, and building links between our communities.
I would say a little more about Lincoln’s twinning arrangements, but I suspect that the enthusiasm for twinning arrangements has been well heard. I would also like to touch on the science and technology partnership elements. I am so pleased that we have enabled visa-free school trips. I hear from hon. Members across the House of the value that they have taken in their visits and those we continue to enjoy.
There is an important expansion of our work in the North sea, the strengthened defence ties touched on in this debate. A direct rail link is much desired and I am pleased that planning has begun. Those are practical, tangible steps that show the real-world impact of this partnership. We will continue to build on those foundations. The state visit in December was a hugely important and welcome moment; I was grateful to hear so many hon. Members touch on the significance of it for them and their constituencies.
The situation in Europe today, particularly given the war in Ukraine—which is being debated in the other Chamber as we speak—underlines the importance of the partnership. Growing Russian aggression, new nuclear risks, cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns and coercive pressure on our allies are issues that the UK and Germany face equally. We were pleased that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were able to lead the UK delegation to the Munich security conference last week. They met their German counterparts to discuss those issues and we stand united in our efforts to tackle them. Together with Germany and France, as driving forces behind the coalition of the willing, we are committed to supporting Ukraine. We will provide military, economic, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance for as long as necessary. We have worked together to impose sweeping sanctions, ban Russian oil, cut Moscow off from key technologies and co-ordinate the most comprehensive package of economic and punitive measures that Russia has ever faced.
There is much more to be done, but we will do it together. The Trinity House agreement referenced in the debate was signed by the Secretary of State for Defence and increases our defence and security co-operation with Germany. Chancellor Merz recently confirmed that Germany is on a path to building the strongest army in Europe. Our partnership means the UK plays a central role in equipping Germany’s military, and supporting European security and British businesses. I am pleased that, thanks to the Trinity House agreement, the German company Rheinmetall is already investing in a new artillery gun barrel factory, which will create 400 jobs in Telford.
There is much else I could touch on across the full range of contributions that have been made. I hope all those watching overseas will see the depth of partnership right across all of the key agendas that face this Government and our partners in Germany. I will return briefly to the shadow Minister’s questions about the defence investment plan. It is a priority; it will strengthen our security and grow the economy, and Defence Ministers will be returning to Parliament in due course.
In conclusion, in an era of instability we must look to our friends. The United Kingdom and Germany will continue to work together to tackle the global challenges we face. We will keep building on the Kensington treaty and strengthening the bonds between our countries and our people. It is a partnership that keeps us safe and delivers for our friends and people on both sides.
Sir Mark Hendrick
I thank all my colleagues in the Chamber for showing such warmth and affection for our relationship with Germany. It is 10 years since the Brexit referendum. The discussion that was taking place in this country at that time was very damaging to Britain and to our economy. Our relationship not just with the EU, but with Europe more generally, is improving step by step. The Government have done an excellent job in promoting that relationship. It is nice to have so many colleagues speaking positively about our relationship with Germany and Europe more generally. I wish we had not had that experience 10 years ago, because we could be building on what was an excellent relationship that should not have been stopped, rather than trying to pick it up again now.
I thank you, Mr Twigg, for chairing this debate, and I thank my colleagues, the German ambassador and her team for attending.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered UK-German relations.