Student Loans

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for giving way: she has been very generous with her time. I think there is a point of principle in this debate, and I should like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on it. Does she believe that there is any degree offered by a university in which it is not fair to invest taxpayers’ money? If the quality is not good enough, surely it is not fair for the individual to be indebted. Will the Minister concede that there probably are some courses, across the country, that it is not fair for the taxpayer to subsidise?

[Georgia Gould]

I have made it very clear that we want to increase the quality of courses, and that is one of the conditions that we attached to increasing the fees in a fair way, but we want to do that by ensuring that those courses are of high enough quality, rather than scrapping the opportunity for young people to go on them.

Looking further ahead, I can tell the House that the Prime Minister’s ambition is to see two thirds of young people in higher-level learning by the age of 25. With the lifelong learning entitlement, which will be launched in January 2027—a policy that the last Administration failed, year after year, to deliver—we are transforming higher education from a “one-shot” opportunity into a flexible and responsive system with learners at its centre. As was mentioned earlier, the LLE will allow learners to fund individual modules and reskill throughout their careers, at colleges and universities alike.

We now have a responsibility to ensure that the benefits of higher education are maintained for future generations, and to clean up a student loan system in which interest rates have been allowed to spiral and students are confused about what is the right path for them. We absolutely recognise that there are failings in the system, but it is not a system that we built; it was a system that the Conservatives created. We know that student loan repayments are a concern for graduates, which is why we increased the plan 2 repayment threshold last year and why we are increasing it again next month, to £29,385. Borrowers who earn below that amount annually will not be required to make any repayments at all. This threshold is higher than the median graduate salary three years after graduation.

Graduates generally go on to benefit from higher earnings, and it remains reasonable for those who gain the largest financial benefits from their degrees to contribute more towards the cost of their studies than those who have not gone to university, or graduates earning lower salaries. Lower earners will still benefit from the unique protections that student loans offer. Any unpaid loan balance, including interest accrued, will still be cancelled at the end of the loan term at no detriment to the individual, outstanding debt is never passed on to a borrower’s family, and having an outstanding student loan is not a barrier to accessing a mortgage. Student loan balances do not appear on borrower credit records, although regular student loan repayments will be considered, alongside other living costs, as part of the affordability check for mortgage applications.

I want to say how seriously the Government take the cost of living challenges that young people face. Too often this generation have found their challenges ignored. We are working hard to tackle these issues by extending Government-funded childcare, reducing energy bills, freezing rail fares, rolling out free breakfast clubs, building new homes and introducing the Renters’ Rights Act 2025.

Before Conservative Members once again line up to criticise the decisions that we have made, I would like to take a moment to remind them of their track record on this matter. Plan 2 student loans were designed and introduced in 2012 by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, with a repayment threshold of £21,000 per year and interest rates of up to 3% above inflation. Those are the very interest rates that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are now calling to be reduced. Having said that they would increase the plan 2 repayment threshold to reflect earnings, they froze it for four years. The Conservatives then froze it in 2016 and in 2017, and again from 2021 to 2024. In total, there was a decade of freezes by the opposition parties. It is their mismanagement that now necessitates a further freeze to the threshold. I do not remember any of this outrage from those Members when they created and built this system.

As we have heard, the Opposition’s solution is to cut courses and cut opportunities. We will not make reckless and unfunded changes to student loans. Student finance and higher education funding is a complex, interconnected system. We are considering a range of options to make the system fairer, but we must be fiscally responsible and consider carefully how change would be funded. Politics is about choices.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Sollom]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because that is one part of the argument I am making. There is a very important point about that, which is that it could equally be an argument for making the loan system fairer in its repayment terms to reflect that.

There is a deeper problem, too. The graduate earnings premium has declined in Britain, but not because we have too many graduates; it is because we have too few skilled jobs. That is a demand-side failure and a Conservative legacy. Our peers in OECD countries have expanded graduate numbers while maintaining the graduate premium, because they built the industries and invested in the regions that generate high-skilled employment. Cutting student numbers accepts our economic underperformance as permanent. It is, as I have said before, a counsel of despair dressed up as policy.

Then there are the creative industries: over £100 billion a year to the British economy; one of our most successful global exports; built on a pipeline of arts graduates. The answer is not to stop training the people on whom the whole pipeline depends. Ultimately, the value of an education cannot be read entirely from a graduate’s salary. The capacity for critical thinking, empathy and cultural participation are public goods, hidden in plain sight, that show up nowhere in write-off rates. A party that asks only “What does it pay?” has already decided something important about what it values.

[Dr Ben Spencer]

On the broader point of principle about the value of certain subjects, I intervened on the Minister and she failed to answer, so I will ask the hon. Gentleman the same question. Does he think that there are some subjects offered by some universities for which the value is quite poor and that it is unfair for the taxpayer to subsidise them? Does he think that in principle it is possible that those subjects exist?

[Ian Sollom]

The point is to allow the market and the regulation of that market to decide. [Interruption.] I will make some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Dr Spencer]

I am not privately educated, and nor did I go to Oxbridge. I am where I am today because I went to a state grammar school. The hon. Gentleman is making an impassioned speech about breaking down barriers to social opportunity. Would he agree that grammar schools are a key part of that?

[Alex McIntyre]

Gloucester has a number of grammar schools and they are doing very well for the students there. I went to a grammar school—[Hon. Members: “Oh!] I went to a state school, and my parents worked really hard to get me there. If Members want to talk about my background, where I came from and how I got to this place, I am very happy to do that. It was quite different from the background of a lot of people on the Conservative Benches.

I am proud to stand here, as the son of a train conductor, talking about opportunities for young people in my constituency who have been left behind for generations, written off and, quite frankly, talked down to by the Conservatives, who talk about making sure that the arts are only for the wealthiest who can afford to go to university and not be spread out, as if education is not actually a benefit to everyone in society and should only be in the purview of those who can afford to pay for it. It is disgraceful, it is taking us back generations and, quite frankly, I am sick to death of hearing about it.

Politics is the language of priorities. As I have said, there are undoubtedly challenges with this system, but the Conservatives left behind so many messes after 14 failed years in government that we cannot fix them all in the first five years of a Labour Government. We are going to need at least a decade. We said that in the manifesto. We talked about a decade of national renewal, and we are committed to that because we cannot afford to fix all the messes that you left behind straight away because you left the economy in a mess as well—[Interruption.] Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. They left the economy in a mess—you had nothing to do with it.

I would say to the Minister, as a parent and as someone who is on plan 2 and has spoken to lots of my residents, that if there is money available and if there is an opportunity, we need to look at the expansion of free childcare. We are talking about priorities and how we can support young people at the moment, and the 30 hours of funded childcare is very welcome, but it does not cover the cost of childcare for people who are working full time throughout the year, not just in term time. That is preventing young people from starting their families and getting on, and this could be a really good opportunity if there was money available. This is about priorities and about how we can support young people. I welcome what the Government are doing, but if I were to give them a gentle nudge in any direction, I would encourage them to look again at what we can do to expand the offering of free childcare.

I am not going to take lectures from the Conservatives on young people. They had no plan for young people during their 14 years. They did not care about young people like me when they were in government. Quite frankly, they wrote me off and I had to fight my way to get here today—[Interruption.] Yes, I did go to a grammar school and I am proud of that. I did quite well for myself, but my parents sacrificed a lot for me to get here, so I am not going to take lectures from the Conservatives on that. This Government are fixing the mess that they left behind. Of course there are challenges in the system, but I welcome the measures that the Government have taken so far, and long may that continue.

SEND Provision: Local Authorities

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Georgia Gould]

Attached to the schools White Paper and the SEND consultation document is our own analysis of children’s rights and all the areas where we are strengthening them. I want to be really clear that the intention of the reforms is to bring in more support earlier and to extend the rights that children have access to.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

The Minister is being generous with her time and I thank her for giving way. I want to reiterate the point about the families who have already gone through the system and who have fought for EHCPs, many of whom have had to go through tribunals and feel like they are having to do everything on their own. I come from a mental health background, and I am surprised that the system does not have what I would call a care co-ordinator to support families who are going through this difficult process.

Families are genuinely scared that the Government’s proposed reforms will lead to a stripping away of support. In my constituency, where we are served by Surrey and Borders partnership NHS foundation trust, it takes a year and a half to get an autism diagnosis, and even longer if people need medication for ADHD. I have raised that in this place with Ministers from the Department of Health and Social Care, but can the Minister reassure me that as part of the approach to SEND, she and her Department are looking at the interface between education and health? I understand what she says about the absence of a diagnosis not meaning that a child should not be supported—we could have another debate about that—but for many children a diagnosis is very important, and it needs to be timely and treatment needs to be quick and effective.

Finally, before I test your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I invite the Minister to come to Meath school, a special educational needs school in Ottershaw in my constituency? It is an amazing place and every time I go there I learn so much, so it would be great if she could come along and meet the fantastic kids and teachers there.

[Georgia Gould]

I confess that I think I have committed to go to every constituency in the country, but I will do my best. [Laughter.] I cannot promise that every single ask will be responded to quickly, but I want to get to every community, and we will also be doing a number of online events as part of the consultation to ensure that everyone has the chance to feed in.

To respond to the hon. Member’s questions, first, it is important to make clear that we are not saying that children do not need a diagnosis. Diagnosis plays an important part in the system for children and young people, but it cannot and should not be a barrier to accessing support in the education system. Schools must have the tools to identify and respond to need, and the resource and well-evidenced interventions to wrap support around children without a diagnosis. However, we are committed to working with Health colleagues on improving the whole system, and the SEND consultation document is clear about that further work on accountability —not just for local authorities, but for integrated care boards. The hon. Member will know about the review of some of the inequalities in access to diagnosis.

The point about care co-ordinators and parental support is well made—that is something I have heard a lot from families. Within the consultation, we have asked a question about how that can be better delivered, and we are committed to doing more in that space. Lots of different ideas have come forward from different disabled children’s organisations and from parents, but I want to use the consultation to hear directly from parents about what is most helpful for them. In some models, parents who have been through the system are paid to support other parents, and the special educational needs and disabilities information advice and support service already exists. We want to look at all the different models, and I would welcome insights from across the House.

I want to provide some important reassurance to those parents who the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) talked about who are concerned about the changes. First, any child at a special school will remain there for as long as they want. We have deliberately taken a careful and staged approach and are putting investment up front, so we are building a new system before we look to transition into it. We are also asking the Children’s Commissioner to take an independent view of system readiness. Secondly, we are clear that any child transitioning from an education, health and care plan must move on to an individual support plan, with the wraparound support I have mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

14. If she will provide a timeline for the completion of construction works at the Magna Carta school in Egham.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

Ensuring that schools and colleges have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. For this project, I can confirm that the Department is in the process of finalising the feasibility study, and we expect to procure the works later this year. Until that process is complete, we will be unable to advise on the length of the construction programme. However, positive progress continues to be made in collaboration with the trust.

[Dr Spencer]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Can he clarify whether the Magna Carta school will have a full rebuild, due to the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or is it just the science and arts block that will be rebuilt? Will he meet me to discuss this issue and the work that will take place on such a fantastic local school?

[Stephen Morgan]

I am very happy to meet the hon. Member.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

Of course, it was this Government who introduced the universal infant free school meal, which means that 1.25 million children in infant schools are receiving a free school meal. We have increased from 1.7 million to 1.9 million the number of children eligible for free school meals, so thanks to this Government something like a third of children today are receiving a nutritious meal at lunchtime in our schools.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

5. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that education and training programmes meet local skills needs.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

13. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that education and training programmes meet local skills needs.

[The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)]

We are working with colleagues across Government and put employers at the heart of local skills systems, with the roll-out of 38 local skills improvement plans. These employer-led plans will help ensure that skills provision better meets the needs of employers, and we are also ensuring that apprenticeships, T-levels and higher technical qualifications are all employer-led qualifications.

[Dr Spencer]

At a schools and skills meeting that I hosted a few weeks ago in my constituency, bringing together businesses and school leaders to enhance opportunities, a representative from a special educational needs school reminded us of the importance of these opportunities for all children. Does my right hon. Friend agree that work and training opportunities are essential for those of all abilities and all ages, including those with special educational needs or living with disabilities?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a champion of schools and skills in his constituency. He is absolutely right to have a passion for making sure that children with disabilities or special educational needs have a chance to climb the skills ladder of opportunity. We are investing £18 million to try to help those SEND students with employment opportunities, as well as ensuring that careers guidance helps them at every step of the way to get the career chances that they deserve.

Schools White Paper

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Mental health is one of the areas we have been looking at with the Children’s Commissioner, including through her very good “The Big Ask” survey of half a million children. In May last year, we announced £17 million of investment to build mental health support in education settings. We have invested further to make sure that the mental health leads in more than 8,000 schools and colleges have the necessary support and knowledge to support young people.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I welcome the White Paper and thank my right hon. Friend for his passion and drive to deliver the best possible education to all children throughout the country, no matter whether they live or what their background is.

This morning, I caught up with some of my local school leaders, as I do regularly, and although they were interested to hear about what was coming up in this announcement there was naturally a bit of trepidation about further change on the back of the covid pandemic. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to make sure the changes are streamlined so that they cause as minimal an amount of disruption for school teachers as possible?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend raises a really important point. The frontline—the 461,000 teachers and 217,000 teaching assistants—and the support staff and leaders in our education system have gone above and beyond to make sure that schools reopened, stayed open and dealt with omicron. We have looked carefully at the evidence, which is why one of the things we have not done is change the curriculum. A knowledge-rich curriculum is important to make sure we deliver the outcomes we so passionately want to deliver for young people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We have the independent review into children’s social care led by Josh MacAlister, and I would be happy to meet her to discuss this important issue further.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I recently met my school leaders and heard how, in a recent inspection by Ofsted, no account had been taken of staff absence due to covid. Can my hon. Friend confirm that Ofsted should take into account covid impact when inspecting and set that out in writing?

[Mr Robin Walker]

I can say to my hon. Friend that having discussed this matter with Her Majesty’s chief inspector, I know that she does take such impacts into account. Ofsted is offering deferrals to schools facing particularly high levels of staff absence, but I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the case to which he refers.

Education

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Ministerial Corrections

[Alex Burghart]

The challenges that we currently face are obviously substantial, but great improvements have been made. At the end of the previous term, attendance in school was at 76.7%; as of Thursday last week, attendance was at 91.9%, with 99.9% of all schools open…The hon. Lady asked about face masks; at some stages in the pandemic we have had face coverings in corridors, social distancing and bubbles, but the evidence now says that we can move away from that.

[Dr Spencer]

It is great to see my hon. Friend in his place at the Dispatch Box. I welcome the work this Government have done to make it a priority to keep schools open for face-to-face learning. In contrast, Labour equivocated over whether they were even safe to reopen. Does he agree that if Labour were in power, our schools would probably be closed for face-to-face learning and our children left behind?.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We have been very clear throughout that we wanted to get schools open as soon as it was safe to do so. We have done that. We have managed to increase attendance from 75% at the end of last term to 91.1% at the start of this term.

[Official Report, 23 September 2021, Vol. 701, c. 431.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart):

An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer).

The correct information should have been:

Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

My heart stopped for a moment because I thought the hon. Gentleman said that he looked forward to my appearing in front of the Education Committee this afternoon, but the autumn is fine—probably. He raises a very important point, because obviously we do want to see children back in school. As he will have heard me say, we have substantial improvement on where we were at the end of last term. Ordinarily of a September, pre-pandemic, we would expect about 95% of children to be in school. Last Thursday, the figure was 91.9%. We are very keen to make up that gap and we are working tirelessly to do so. One of the things I have not mentioned is that the DFE has REACT—regional education and children’s teams—working across the country with local authorities, regional schools commissioners and schools themselves to clamp down on outbreaks where they take place and to help children to get back into school as quickly as possible.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

It is great to see my hon. Friend in his place at the Dispatch Box. I welcome the work this Government have done to make it a priority to keep schools open for face-to-face learning. In contrast, Labour equivocated over whether they were even safe to reopen. Does he agree that if Labour were in power, our schools would probably be closed for face-to-face learning and our children left behind?

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We have been very clear throughout that we wanted to get schools open as soon as it was safe to do so. We have done that. We have managed to increase attendance from 75% at the end of last term to 91.1% at the start of this term.[Official Report, 19 October 2021, Vol. 701, c. 4MC.] There is a lot further to go. However, it is the roll-out of our vaccination programme across the country, with the high uptake and the hard work of our health service, that has enabled us to get to this point. Children are better off in education and they are able to be in education because of the steps this Government have taken.

Covid-19: Education Settings

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The right hon. Lady is right to say that I know Hull very well, as my family come from Hull. I recognise that schools have faced great challenges, not just in the great city of Kingston upon Hull but right across the country. That is why our support for schools is not just about tutoring. She will be aware that there is so much evidence showing that small-group tutoring delivers some of the best educational catch-up and results of any intervention, in terms of money invested. Covid recovery support premium has gone out to schools, so they are able to build on further actions and interventions that they themselves can take to support children to catch up on the work they have missed.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I also welcome the statement and thank my right hon. Friend. I thank everyone—the families and the staff—who has worked so hard to ensure that education has been delivered to children over the course of the pandemic. However, will my right hon. Friend clarify a point around the self-isolation requirements? As every parent knows, children—especially very young children—have coughs and colds and temperatures two a penny. At the moment, a temperature leads to a family self-isolation requirement, causing huge disruption to the child’s educational development and a huge impact on families. Can he unpack a bit what the requirements will be around children developing coughs and colds, particularly in early years, and what guidance and protocols will be taken forward? Will isolation be necessary, will testing be necessary, or can it be passed over if it is just a simple cough or cold?

Catch-up Premium

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I start by again thanking the teachers who work in my constituency; the people who work in and around schools and early years; those who work at our university, Royal Holloway; and everyone who is involved in supporting, looking after and educating our children. It has been a very difficult year for everyone, in particular for our young people and everyone who works in the education sector. I just want to say thanks to them again.

I really enjoyed last week’s debate, so I was absolutely delighted and surprised that the Opposition seemed to enjoy my contribution so much that they wanted to hear it again. Here we go:

“Education is one of the best opportunities”—[Official Report, 9 June 2021; Vol. 696, c. 981.]—

but if Members wish to see my speech, they may go to Hansard or to my website, where it is up and subtitled; the very daring may subscribe to my newsletter for regular updates.

This groundhog day debate gives me the chance to say something that did not make the cut of my education debate speech version 1.0, so I will try a different ending. We have talked a lot about education, and it is said that irony is a very difficult concept to teach, perhaps best taught through example. This past year, we have moved heaven and earth to keep schools open. We tried to reopen them as soon as possible, but the Opposition and the unions pushed back. Now, they complain that the support is not enough. The irony, a lesson to us all!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I think we now go to Paul Howell.