Higher Education (England) Regulations

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

It is my pleasure to speak in this important debate and follow the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on her excellent maiden speech.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I have been in the Chamber for over seven hours now. I wanted to speak in the earlier important debate on NHS pay and did not get a chance due to the shortage of time and the number of interventions. I have one and a half minutes at the moment, so I do not know how much I can say, but there is plenty that I wanted to say.

Since 2010, under successive spans of Tory rule, students have repeatedly been held back by Government policy. It was a Conservative-led Government who trebled tuition fees to £9,000 in 2012, with the help of the Liberal Democrats. It is a Conservative Government who have frozen the student loan repayment threshold at £21,000; a Conservative Government who introduced the extortionate 6.1% interest rate on student loans; a Conservative Government who abolished the maintenance grants that were a lifeline for many of the poorest students. And most recently, of course, it was a Conservative Government who snuck out a written statement on the final day before summer recess which allowed universities to further raise tuition fees to £9,250 per year.

Thank you for letting me speak, Madam Deputy Speaker.