Student Loans

Debate between Alex McIntyre and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex McIntyre]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased that I am coming to exactly that point later in my speech.

Of course there are challenges with this system. There were challenges with it back when it was introduced in 2012. We pointed out the fact that there are huge generational inequalities: there are hon. Members present in the Chamber who did not pay tuition fees at all and had lower house prices when they graduated, so they could afford to buy a house. Those challenges continue, and part of the reason that I got into politics was to deal with those intergenerational inequalities. We all talk about broken promises, but what happened to the promise about levelling up? In my mind, levelling up was about creating more opportunities for young people in places like mine in Gloucester, but those opportunities were never delivered by the Conservatives.

I want what is best for young people and for the university sector in my constituency. I am delighted to be able to take this opportunity to welcome the brand new university campus that the University of Gloucestershire has opened in the city centre, taking over the Debenhams building and creating a new campus for students, with a public library, so that young people in Gloucester can see what that opportunity looks like going forward.

We need to ensure that we are creating opportunities for all young people, because despite the move towards more people going to university, only a third of people in Gloucestershire will go to university, and in the most deprived parts of my constituency, that number is fewer than one in five. That is why I am proud that the Government are introducing maintenance grants, and why I am backing the new target of two thirds of young people going to university or doing gold-standard apprenticeships, because university might not be the best route for everybody. Generations of young people in my community were left behind by the Conservatives, who had no plan in Government for young people in my constituency.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is making an impassioned speech and we hear where he is coming from, but over the 14 years of Conservative Government, 800 jobs were created every day and unemployment was brought down to near record lows. Since his party has come to power, with the mission that he is describing, what has happened? Unemployment is up by 25% and youth unemployment has now eclipsed even that of Europe. The Government are not delivering. I hope in the next part of his speech, he is going to talk about what the Government need to do now in order to make things better for young people, because at the moment every indicator is going the wrong way, including the cost of student loans.

[Alex McIntyre]

I am always happy to be educated by privately educated Oxbridge graduates who did not pay a penny for their student fees. The right hon. Gentleman will find that employment levels have actually gone up. The number of people in employment has gone up under this Government—[Interruption.] Well, that’s the stat. If he wants to check, he is more than welcome to.

I welcome the youth guarantee that the Government have talked about this week, introducing more apprenticeships and opportunities for young people and tackling the people in my constituency who have been furthest from employment. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Rosie Wrighting) made a fantastic speech about some of the other things we are doing for young people. It is not just about education; it is about renters’ rights and expanding free childcare.