Cat Smith
Main Page: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)Department Debates - View all Cat Smith's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberUniversity students, many of whom were not eligible for furlough for their part-time jobs, were already struggling financially. Today’s road map suggests that the vast majority of those students will not be able to return to their university accommodation until after Easter at best. They are legally being prevented from returning to accommodation for which they are obliged to pay. Does the Prime Minister think that that is fair? If he does not think that it is fair, what will he do about it?
I sympathise deeply with students who have had a time at university that no other generation has put up with. I sympathise deeply with their sense of unfairness, with the experiences they have had. They have been heroic, by the way, in the in which they have been able to bring the disease down in some university towns by obeying the guidance. We will do whatever we can to support them, working with the university sector, to make up for the experiences they have been through and to make sure, insofar as we can, that we help them to get compensation.