Student Loans

David Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman raises a very interesting point, and I look forward to his bringing it up with the Chancellor at questions.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

I say to Labour Members that we all want to get this issue sorted out. When I spoke to the Chancellor during the spring statement, she said that the way that she was going to control student loan interest rates was by controlling inflation, but we all know what is happening in the middle east at the moment. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that policy is wishful thinking and that we need to think about the issue properly in order to change the system?

[Laura Trott]

Exactly. The Chancellor gave it all away when she said that young people are at the back of the queue—that tells us all that we need to know about this Government.

The Government amendment is the usual mishmash of nothingness, and I suspect many Labour Members are disappointed. The amendment welcomes

“the Government’s commitment to make the system fairer and financially sustainable”,

even though the only thing that the Government have done so far, which is the threshold freeze, has made the system less fair and less sustainable for young people. But don’t worry, there is more. Labour Members are today going to welcome a “target”—not any action lines, but a target—even though it is a target that the Government are currently missing, as the share and volume of under-25s starting apprenticeships in the last academic year have fallen. What a mess!

We need a different approach. The Conservatives believe that the system needs fundamental change. We believe that students should not be mis-sold degrees that promise the earth and deliver nothing but debt, that the freeze on thresholds is wrong, that students on plan 2 loans should only pay interest at inflation, and that young people deserve a new deal. That is what we are asking the Government to vote for today, so that young people will be put not to the back of the queue but to the front of it.

[The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)]

I beg to move

an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“recognises that the Government inherited the current broken student loans system, including Plan 2, which was devised by previous administrations; welcomes the Government’s commitment to make the system fairer and financially sustainable; further welcomes the support the Government is providing to young people through the Youth Guarantee; supports the Government’s target for two thirds of young people to achieve higher level skills by the age of 25, including reversing the decline in apprenticeships under the previous Government; and further supports the reintroduction of maintenance grants, which had been scrapped under the previous Government, to help ensure that background is not a barrier to opportunity for young people.”

I welcome the Opposition’s focus today on opportunities for young people, student loans and apprenticeships. I am pleased that the House has the opportunity to scrutinise this broken system devised by the Conservatives, who tripled tuition fees, introduced plan 2 loans and presided over a decade that saw a 40% drop in young people starting apprenticeships.

[David Reed]

We have heard the argument repeatedly that it was the Conservatives and the coalition Government that brought in these changes. I am someone with a plan 2 loan. I was in the generation that Blair told to go to university, and at no point did anyone in that Blair Government talk about how the jobs market would take on so many graduates or, most importantly, who would pay for those people to go to university. Does the Minister agree that the 50% of school leavers who went to university should be paid for by the 50% that did not?

[Georgia Gould]

I think it is really relevant to make sure that the public know who created this system—and not only created it, but froze those loans 10 times over the last 12 years—[Interruption.] I know that it is inconvenient for the Conservatives to be reminded of these truths, but we have lived through them.