Access to Further Education

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) on securing this important debate. Access to further education is access to opportunity. For most young people, and for a great many adults, it is the route to a job or back into learning. When that access works, it changes lives. When it does not, we fail not just an individual but their family, their local community, the economy and, over a lifetime, the public purse.

We do not make it as easy as it should be to access further education. I will focus on two barriers: funding and transport, on which the Government are not going far enough or fast enough. Last year, in the skills White Paper, the Education Secretary promised real-terms increases in per-pupil funding for 16 to 19 providers. Instead, per-head funding this year is going up by just 0.55%. That is a real-terms cut. Overall funding for 16 to 19 education now stands at around £4.7 billion, 30% below its inflation-adjusted high of £6.8 billion in 2003-04.

Cambridge Regional College sits just outside my constituency of St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire. Its principal, Mark Robertson, has been clear with me about the cost: there is a pay gap of around £12,500 between school and FE teachers. At a time when the college needs enough maths and English teachers to deliver resits for about 1,300 young people in each subject, those teachers could earn thousands more teaching exactly the same subject in a school down the road.

Less visible but just as damaging is the fact that colleges are funded based on the previous year’s intake. This means that when demand rises—and it is rising—colleges have to enrol and teach students now, but must wait, often a full academic year, to be funded for them. Nationally, colleges took on around 32,000 additional 16 to 19 students in ’25-26 to meet that rising demand, and were left to absorb the costs themselves. That is not a funding system that supports improving access.

I would just suggest two changes that might help. As the Minister will know, colleges, unlike schools, cannot reclaim VAT. That amounts to a tax on further education worth around £210 million per year. The Liberal Democrats would end that anomaly. We would also extend the pupil premium to post-16 learners, including those in FE, so that support for disadvantaged young people does not simply stop the day they turn 16.

Of course, funding cannot reach colleges that are not there. I will give another example from my constituency: St Neots is the largest town in Cambridgeshire, but it has no further education college of its own. Despite innovative efforts to provide some provision in the town, many of our young people must travel to reach the courses that could change their lives. Of course, St Neots is far from being the only further education cold spot in the country.

That brings me to the second barrier: transport. The law requires every young person to remain in education or training until 18, but it does not require any local authority to help them to get there. Once a young person turns 16, transport support becomes discretionary, rather than statutory—a cliff edge at exactly the point the law starts asking more of them, not less. The Association of Colleges tells us that some students face journeys of up to three hours a day to reach their course, and colleges are increasingly subsidising transport themselves out of budgets meant for teaching and learning.

The Liberal Democrats have urged the Government to fully restore the £2 bus fare cap—a change that hit rural passengers particularly hard, in exactly the areas where too many of our young people are trying to reach college. Perhaps the Minister could also explain in this debate why a more direct measure—a concessionary bus pass for under-22s, which was recommended by the Transport Committee—was rejected by the Government as unaffordable.

To conclude, it is worth highlighting what it costs when access fails. The Milburn review puts a number on it: an average of £29,000 a year for every person who is not in education, employment or training, rising to a lifetime cost of £240,000. We spend £7,900 a year on a further education student—that is not a close call. This is a false economy on a national scale. There is a missed opportunity on our doorstep to prove that it does not have to be this way. I hope that the Minister will tell us how the Government plan to address those barriers to access.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I now call the shadow Minister—I believe it is his first time. Congratulations and welcome, shadow Minister.

Draft Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 General Committees

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. The Lib Dems have long supported the principle of a flexible credit-based system that lets people study in smaller chunks across their working lives, rather than in one fixed block at 18 years old. We are glad to see that direction reflected here today. I am afraid we cannot endorse the instrument, however, for reasons that I will put on the record.

The first reason is substantive. The instrument, and the package that it leads, relies entirely on a loan-based model to drive take-up among exactly the cohort it claims to serve—adults who are already in work, with mortgages, dependants and a shorter working life over which to repay any loan. A loan that looks like a reasonable proposition for an 18-year-old starting a three-year degree looks very different to a 45-year-old weighing up retraining against existing financial commitments.

When that issue was raised directly in the other place during the passage of the enabling legislation in 2023, the Government’s response was essentially to defer the question to the detail. The instrument is that detail, but the question has not really been answered. The Department’s 2021 pilot of loan-funded short courses, run jointly with the Office for Students, planned for more than 100 courses and 2,000 students, but only 17 courses launched and 125 students enrolled, of whom just 41 took out a loan. That direct, real-world test of the model that this instrument now extends across the entire post-18 system did not generate demand. Will the Minister tell us what assessment has been made of whether the LLE risks repeating that outcome at scale? Has a grant-based supplement, of the kind that the Liberal Democrats have proposed, been costed and considered?

The second reason is procedural. This instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure, but the two remaining SIs in the package—the student support regulations and the repayment regulations—will be laid under the negative procedure, meaning that they will become law without a vote and without the parliamentary scrutiny warranted by a package of this complexity and long-term consequence.

The student support and repayment arrangements are not peripheral details. They are the mechanisms that will determine whether the Government have addressed that loan-aversion issue, whether maintenance support is adequate and whether repayment terms are fair. What if the fee system fails to generate the take-up that the Government are predicting or hoping for? The review is not planned until 2031-32, five years after launch. I suggest that those two instruments should be upgraded to the affirmative procedure so that we can properly scrutinise what follows.

I have a number of more specific questions for the Minister. First, the instrument carries forward the £5,760 lower fee cap for foundation years in subjects such as humanities, business, law and social sciences. That cap was set in 2023 and is unchanged since. Every other major fee category in the instrument receives an uplift in the second tranche, from August 2027. The lower fee foundation year rate does not. For many people without a traditional academic pathway, foundation years are the entry point into higher education. That route runs disproportionally through colleges and lower-tariff institutions, serving the students whom the Government say they most want to reach. Can the Minister confirm that this is simply a continuation of the 2023 cap with no independent review for the instrument, and that, unlike every other fee category mentioned, it does not rise in August 2027?

If the policy rationale for that is to keep fees down to protect access, which is reasonable, is there any compensating mechanism—direct institutional funding, for example—to ensure that providers can keep delivering that provision as costs rise around a frozen fee? The risk is that we are quietly trusting institutions to absorb an indefinite real-terms cut in exactly the provision that is most likely to serve disadvantaged learners.

Regulation 9 requires providers to notify in advance the Secretary of State of the number of credits attached to a course year, and to repeat that notification whenever activities change mid-year. Has the Department made any assessment of the cumulative administrative burden that that will place on smaller providers and FE-based higher education providers, which, again, are precisely the institutions best placed to deliver the flexible, bite-sized provision that the LLE is meant to enable?

The two-tier higher and basic fee structure in the instrument imports the existing access and participation plan mechanism from full-time undergraduate study. APPs were not designed with part-time modular or older learners in mind. Has the Office for Students been asked to assess whether APP commitments, as currently framed, are fit for purpose in a credit-based lifelong learning context?

Regulation 19 ensures that courses designated for lifelong learning purposes are not treated as designated under the pre-existing Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 regime. Can the Minister confirm that no student currently part way through a course will risk falling between those two designation regimes and losing eligibility for support as a result?

On a minor point that is still worth highlighting, the explanatory memorandum states that the per-credit rate is £81.58, but dividing the £9,790 headline figure by 120 credits gives a recurring decimal, meaning that, at the stated rounding, 120 credits produces £9,789.60, rather than £9,790.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

We all knew that!

[Ian Sollom]

Well, I am a mathematician by trade. It is a small point, but every fee limit in the system is derived from that per-credit calculation, so will the Minister confirm the correct rounding convention, and that the providers and the Student Loans Company are working from the same figure?

We support the direction of this reform, and will not stand in its way today, but the loan-only design and the inadequate scrutiny afforded to the two follow-on instruments are real concerns. I hope that the Minister will address them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Georgia Gould]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important question, and pay tribute to the amazing work she has set out. I thank Devon for her leadership and extend my heartfelt condolences to the family. It is so critical that we keep young people safe, and I hope we can continue to work together to do so.

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

T7. In April, the High Court found that the Office for Students had predetermined its decision against the University of Sussex, approaching the investigation with a “closed mind”, and had acted beyond its legal powers. What is the Secretary of State’s response to that finding, and what steps is she taking to restore confidence in the regulator?

[Bridget Phillipson]

Since coming into government, we have reformed the regulator to make sure there is a sharper focus on financial sustainability, and there is a new chair who is taking that work forward. The case that the hon. Member refers to covered many years. He will appreciate that there are limitations on what I can say about it, but he should be assured that we want strong regulation of our universities that is most effective in ensuring they can uphold their responsibilities while remaining financially viable.

Lifelong Learning: “University of the Air” White Paper

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) on securing the debate. I know that he is a passionate advocate and champion of the OU. I welcome the opportunity to speak on a subject that, frankly, deserves far more attention.

Opening access to education, rewarding hard work and helping everyone to fulfil their potential are aims that sit at the heart of the Liberal Democrat vision for a free and fair society. Our predecessors were wholeheartedly supportive of the spirit behind the 1966 White Paper and we continue to be so. It is right that we mark its 60th anniversary by celebrating the work that it set in motion.

In my constituency there are currently 240 Open University students: 210 undergraduates and 30 postgraduates. Nearly half of those undergraduates started their studies under the age of 30 and over a quarter declare a disability. That tells us something about how OU study fits around life. It is not a story that is unique to my patch. Nationally, 19% of OU students live in the most economically disadvantaged areas of the country, nearly 70% are already in work when they begin studying, and three in four arrive with no previous higher education qualification at all. That is a testament to the access mission that the OU embodies.

In preparing for this debate, I enjoyed revisiting the 1966 White Paper, its proposals and the debates that led up to it. Hindsight is, of course, a wonderful thing but after reading one Member dismiss the idea as an “inflated concept” in a 1965 debate, I could not help but reflect, 60 years later, that the OU has comprehensively answered that objection, becoming a much-loved national institution.

It has also been interesting to reflect on the world of adult education at the time. The White Paper was explicit that the university would sit alongside a wider ecosystem of provision, not replace it. The Government of the day promised to make full use of

“existing agencies, such as the Extra-Mural Departments of Universities, the Workers’ Educational Association…and local education authorities.”

In fact, the White Paper returns to that point twice. The vision was plural: a national broadcasting university—at the time—working hand in hand with local night classes, adult education centres and further education colleges, each reinforcing the other.

The Open University itself has remained admirably faithful to that founding outward-facing instinct. It partners with institutions that lack their own degree-awarding powers, validating their programmes, and a high proportion of its graduates stay in their local area, contributing to the local economy. Five years after graduating, more than nine in 10 OU graduates still live in the postcode area where they studied, which I believe is precisely the kind of locally rooted impact hoped for by the authors of the White Paper.

What has perhaps not survived so well is the other half of the 1966 vision—the local ecosystem that the OU was meant to complement. Public funding for adult skills and community learning has fallen sharply since its peak in the early 2000s. Spending on classroom-based adult education specifically has fallen by about two thirds over that period, and the number of publicly funded classroom-based further education courses taken by adults in England has dropped from 5.4 million in 2004-05 to just 1.7 million last year, which is a fall of about 70%. Of course, that is not the OU’s doing, and further education colleges still do excellent work within a narrower remit, but the wider tapestry of provision that the White Paper authors assumed would sit alongside a “University of the Air” has thinned out considerably since.

Even the OU is feeling the strain of operating in that emptier landscape. Its own accounts for the last financial year show an accounting deficit of £27 million, which was brought back into a small underlying operating surplus only through a sustained programme of costs reduction, including the loss, sadly, of over 300 full-time equivalent roles last year. That should be seen less as a reflection on the OU, and more as a reflection on a much deeper structural problem. The part-time higher education market in England has been shrinking for years, and the OU, even as the strongest player in that market, cannot grow the pool of adult learners on its own. That is a job for Government policy, not for one institution’s marketing budget.

That is exactly why the choice of funding mechanism matters so much for mature and returning learners. The lifelong learning entitlement that the Government are bringing forward is a welcome step in the right direction, but the evidence consistently shows that loans are not a strong enough incentive on their own to get more people from that group into education or training. Financial anxiety is already one of the biggest barriers preventing people from returning to study. Older learners are understandably more risk averse than 18-year-olds, and asking someone to take on the very debt they are trying to avoid to access more flexible and modular learning is not necessarily the answer.

Instead, we Liberal Democrats have long called for grants of between £5,000 and £10,000 to be made available to people at key stages throughout their life to support retraining and reskilling. To ensure that that funding is well spent, we would pair it with good guidance on the options available and make sure that it is usable across a wide range of institutions, from local further education colleges to national universities and, of course, the OU.

I hope the Minister, hearing praise from across the Chamber for the OU’s success in reaching learners of all ages, will give serious thought to that proposal for the long term, because it will matter more, not less, as time goes on. The world of work is changing fast, and maintaining a highly skilled, productive economy will require us to continually invest in our most precious resource—people.

Learning cannot be a cost to be minimised once an initial education ends. The OU’s own record bears out the difference that can be made: it is ranked third nationally for graduate employability, and it has innovative schemes such as the virtual internships programme, which was built specifically for distance learners who could never have accessed an internship through conventional routes. That is what lifelong learning looks like when it works, but it cannot fall to one institution. Perhaps the most important insight from the White Paper is that no single institution, however innovative, can deliver lifelong learning alone. That responsibility sits with Government, who have their own opportunity to address that.

Last October’s “Post-16 education and skills” White Paper restated the Government’s ambitions for the lifelong learning entitlement, which is due to come into force in January 2027. However, the secondary legislation and implementation detail that will determine whether it actually reaches risk-averse adult learners, rather than just the 18-year-olds who the loan model already works for, remain outstanding. I therefore hope that the Minister can set out not just the date for that detail but whether the detail will include any role, or ambition, for grants alongside loans. It would be fitting for the anniversary that we are celebrating today to be marked by such a step forward in adult education.

Children: Development of Essential Skills

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) on securing this really important debate.

Whether children leave school with the skills that they need is not just an education question but an economic one, and one that the Government have a particular responsibility to get right. As mentioned, the Milburn review, “Young People and Work”, published just last week, underlines how complex and deep-rooted the problems are and how much depends on getting the foundations right. Skills England has noted that members of the UK workforce are more likely to be underqualified for their occupations than counterparts in other OECD countries. We are talking about 26% of UK workers, against an OECD average of 18%. That is not an accident; it is the accumulated consequences of choices made about what we teach, how we teach it and whom we invest in earliest.

If we want to understand where things go wrong, we should start at the beginning, as the hon. Members for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others have highlighted. The early years foundation stage data for 2024-25 shows that 68% of children achieved a good level of development at the end of reception, meaning that nearly one in three did not, falling short on personal, social and emotional development, physical development, communication, literacy or numeracy. Children who arrive behind tend to stay behind. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers opens early and rarely closes, sadly.

[Peter Swallow]

The hon. Member is making a really important point about the need to focus on early years. Given that, does he regret the decision taken by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government in 2010 to cut Sure Start?

[Ian Sollom]

The point is well made about the importance of early years. That decision was sadly before my time, but it has certainly had consequences that we should all attempt to put right.

Investment in high-quality early years provision, properly funded and staffed, is the most cost-effective skills intervention available for the long term. The Liberal Democrats broadly welcome the curriculum review, but we are concerned about the scrapping of the EBacc, at least in isolation—that is to say, without more clarity about accountability. The EBacc fulfilled an important role in mainstreaming subjects that were in decline, such as the humanities and languages. The right response to that is to build on its success by broadening it further to encompass arts, coding and physical education, rather than removing the accountability framework altogether. Without clear guidance, vital subjects risk being sidelined as schools struggle with budget pressures. That is why the Government’s commitment to give arts GCSEs equal status to humanities and introduce a core enrichment entitlement matters. It is also why the test now is whether those commitments translate into actual curriculum time in actual schools—particularly those serving disadvantaged communities, where the squeeze has been sharpest.

It is important to recognise that breadth is only part of the answer; the quality and relevance of the core curriculum matters just as much. Too many young people leave school without feeling equipped to use maths in their lives or careers. Financial literacy, data interpretation and proportional reasoning are not optional extras but critical foundations. We should be asking not just whether children can pass their maths exam but whether the maths they are taught actually serves them.

That same question—does what we teach serve children in the world they are entering?—applies in many respects. The hon. Member for Bracknell and others highlighted civic skills, and I would pick up artificial intelligence, given the world we are entering. The curriculum review is the right moment to embed AI literacy, not simply as a bolt-on qualification but as a genuine thread running throughout what children learn. Understanding those tools and their capabilities and limits is becoming a basic competency. The Government’s instinct is right, and we encourage real ambition in following it through.

Skills alone are not enough if children cannot see where they might take them. Even a child who leaves school with strong skills, broad knowledge and digital fluency may still struggle if nobody has helped them to see what is possible, so careers guidance really matters. It matters most for the children who do not have family networks reaching into professional life. For children in that position, a well-timed conversation about what their aptitudes could lead to is not peripheral support; it is transformative. The Liberal Democrats are clear that the earlier that guidance begins, the more powerful it is.

To pick up the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), children with SEND must be included in every part of our ambition for essential skills. Too many children with SEND still cannot access support for their education, health and care plans. The system remains slow and adversarial, and is too dependent on families fighting for entitlements that should be automatic. Early identification and intervention is not happening at the scale or pace required, and when that does not happen, the consequences are compounded through adolescence and into adulthood.

The Government’s reforms are a step in the right direction, and we genuinely welcome their intent, but SEND reforms must be judged not by the stated intentions but by the outcomes for children. That is the standard we will continue to hold the Government to.

Student Loans

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Opposition for this debate. In the recent Westminster Hall debate on this topic, we heard powerful testimony about the reality that graduates face in making repayments every month and watching their balance grow, with their plans deferred and lives constrained. I am sure we will hear more of that today, and those stories deserve to be heard and to receive a clear response, not a political runaround.

Parts of the motion are not wrong. The plan 2 threshold should be unfrozen, and while we may disagree on the specific change proposed, the interest structure does need reform, as the Liberal Democrats have said clearly. The motion also calls for more apprenticeships for 18 to 21-year-olds, and we welcome such investment in principle. We would go further by doubling degree apprenticeships in priority sectors and introducing skills co-operatives specifically to help small businesses to pool resources to take on apprentices they could not otherwise afford.

However, the question is whether the motion as a whole represents a serious plan, and I am afraid that it does not. Specifically, it calls for

“controlling the number of places on university courses where the benefits are significantly outweighed by the cost to graduates and taxpayers.”

Let us be clear about what

“controlling the number of places”

means. It means cutting. The courses they have in mind are arts, humanities and creative subjects.

The argument rests on a definition that sounds objective but is not: which courses have benefits that are significantly outweighed by their costs? The proxy appears effectively to be graduate salaries. Graduate salaries are a poor measure of what society gains from a degree. Nursing, teaching, social work and creative arts all underperform on salary data while delivering enormous public value, so what logic are the Conservatives applying? Even on salary terms, cutting arts places would damage science, technology, engineering and maths, not protect it, as one Labour Member mentioned. Arts courses are relatively cheap to deliver and cross-subsidise expensive laboratory provision. The Institute for Fiscal Studies explicitly found that reducing arts funding may, perversely, reduce funding for STEM.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. The Conservatives talk about cutting public funding for courses such as creative arts, but that will not stop the wealthiest students from accessing those courses. Does he agree with me that all that will happen is that people from more deprived parts of our country will not be able to access them, and that there will be one rule for them and another rule for everyone else?

[Ian Sollom]

The history of access to university demonstrates that point well.

[Graham Stuart]

I am trying to follow the mental perambulations of the left. The argument seems to be that people from working-class backgrounds can go on courses that lead them to have negative outcomes—poor earnings—and that the very course they are on, which does them little good, with so much promised and so little delivered, actually has the opportunity to cross-subsidise other people doing other courses. Both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Gloucester (Alex McIntyre) seem to think that is a good thing. Can they not see that, in reality, it is not?

[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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. To be helpful, the hon. Member might reflect on the fact that the microphone is in front of him; it makes it much harder for Hansard and for the viewing public to pick up his words if he faces the back of the Chamber.

[Ian Sollom]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I will turn to the threshold and the interest rate—areas on which we do substantially agree with the Conservative motion’s diagnosis, if not its proposed remedy. In the system as it stands, the interest rate matters financially only for those who repay in full, which most graduates do not. That is by design to share the costs between the graduate and the state. It means that the largest benefit of the Conservatives’ proposal would flow to the highest earners—those who repay completely. As analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown, it would be regressive in its distribution, which is why more thought is required on interest structure.

On the threshold, the picture is more straightforward. Before the election, the Education Secretary promised that graduates would pay less under Labour, as the shadow Minister said, and, in their first Budget, the Government left the threshold rising. Then, in their second Budget, the Government froze the threshold for three years from 2027.

Ministers have cited a £5.9 billion figure as the yield of this change, but we should be clear about what that figure is: it is the discounted present value of extra repayments across nearly 30 years, with the bulk sitting in the 2030s, 2040s and 2050s. The annual cash impact during this Parliament is relatively small, and the change barely moves the needle on the Chancellor’s own fiscal rules. Graduates will bear a real and immediate burden in their payslip for the remainder of their loan for a cash-flow improvement that is modest in this Parliament and does nothing at all for the Chancellor’s balanced Budget rule. Of all the choices in November’s Budget, why did they make this one?

I note that the Government’s amendment today welcomes a commitment to making the system fairer, and such commitments should be welcomed. However, graduates are waiting for action. Let me therefore set out what the Liberal Democrats would do. First, we would unfreeze the plan 2 threshold immediately and tie it to earnings, as was originally promised. Secondly, we would restore meaningful maintenance grants. Students from the poorest families can borrow £1,284 less today in real terms than in 2020-21. The £1,000 grant reaches about 10% of students, restricted to specific subjects. I think we can do better on maintenance policy: grants must be available regardless of subject, and the parental income thresholds that have been frozen since 2008 must be urgently uprated.

Thirdly, we would establish a royal commission on graduate finance, including plans 2, 3 and 5—plans 3 and 5 have terms that are, in several respects, even harsher. All those plans should be in scope. It should also have independent oversight of key parameters. That is not to delay, but to look seriously at fairer interest structures, total repayment caps and progressive repayment rates, and, critically, to build the cross-party settlement that is the only real protection against the next Government squeezing graduates again.

The system has been treated as a fiscal convenience rather than a social contract by the previous Government, and now by this one. Graduates deserve better.

Draft Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 General Committees

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Sir John.

I will speak briefly. The Liberal Democrats will not be supporting this draft instrument. We understand why the Government brought it forward: universities are under severe financial pressure and the sector needs sustainable funding. We absolutely accept that problem, but that does not mean that we accept the solution. Our position continues to be that any changes to fee limits must be part of a wider package of reform.

Students deserve to know not just what they will pay but whether repayment terms will be fair, whether the system as a whole will treat them honestly and that the terms will not be changed against them when it is convenient. At the moment, young people can see that those questions do not have satisfactory answers, and that is why we have called for a royal commission on graduate finance to address them properly.

Reform of student finance is only half the picture. We are also clear that fee increases should, in return, come with clear expectations on universities about demonstrable financial sustainability, transparent reporting of how money is spent and accountability on student outcomes. None of that conditionality is on offer here. Asking students to pay more while the underlying system remains unreformed, without clear accountability for how the money is used, is not something we can support.

[The Chair]

Minister, I assume that the correction slip that you drew the Committee’s attention to is going to be produced and delivered today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh MacAlister]

I am pleased to hear that that is where the hon. Lady was at that time. The Conservative Government and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition froze thresholds 10 times.

[Ian Sollom]

The Minister has made that point in several debates. I would just like to explain that the commitment was to raise thresholds from when the first cohort graduated, which was in 2016. That was indeed why Martin Lewis investigated the issue and considered judicial review in 2016. There was no freezing of thresholds prior to that. They were due to rise from 2016. I am sure the Minister did not mean to misinform us.

[Josh MacAlister]

Certainly not. In fact, the current student loan system—I believe it is plan 5—which is due to come online with the first graduates this year, has been increased in line with inflation by this Government. The point stands that the choice of the Government back then was to maintain the threshold where it was and effectively freeze it, capturing many more people into the system. The cumulative effect of 10 threshold freezes in a decade where inflation was ticking up is being felt by students now.

It is somewhat galling to hear that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are outraged that this Government, who were able to find the money to lift the threshold in our first year in office, are now balancing difficult decisions so that we can make sure that we have the funding needed for further education, since over half of students do not go to university and need a well-resourced skills system. Both parties seem now to be walking away from their responsibility to make a system that they designed work effectively, which is unfortunate.

The Committee will know how crucial this sector is for our economic growth—I am sure this is felt across the House. Members will recognise its importance in contributing to research and innovation and the impact that it has on local communities and the lives of students. Challenges in higher education have been left unaddressed for far too long, and providers have suffered a significant real-terms decline in their income.

The Government have not shied away from the decisions that are needed. We took action to raise the fee cap in 2025-26, and we have committed to bringing back maintenance grants and future-proofing maintenance loans for students, but we need to go further so that that our higher education sector can continue to deliver the world-class education and research that this country and future generations deserve.

Independent Faith Schools: VAT

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing forward this debate.

It is well established that the Liberal Democrats oppose taxing education, whether that is independent, faith or non-faith schools. We did not support the Government’s decision to end the VAT exemption for independent schools, nor them treating such schools differently from other independent education providers for VAT purposes. Neither did we support the Government’s policy to remove private schools’ charitable business rates relief of 80%, for those that are charities.

Our position applies equally to all independent schools, but I acknowledge that for many parents, choosing a faith school is not primarily a financial calculation; it is an expression of deeply held conviction about how their children should be raised, and about community and belief. The Government should be mindful of how the policy bears on those for whom a faith education is not a luxury but a matter of conscience. It must be the choice of parents to decide where their children are educated. We understand that the choices parents make have many reasons, and it is parents’ right to make such choices without being subject to further taxes.

I have heard from several of my constituents on this issue, none of them wealthy but all of them working hard and wanting to do the very best for their children. Some, alongside many others across the country, have struggled to find a local state secondary school place for their child and have been offered one many miles away. That has meant that they have had to resort to private school, while they sit on long waiting lists for places that will never become available, leaving them under considerable financial pressures.

Many other parents have been failed by the school their children attended, which has not provided the support that they need. They have been forced to move to the private sector, again at considerable cost. That has not been a choice, but something they feel has been forced on them, because of issues with the school system. Any parent making that choice, however, for whatever reason, should certainly not be penalised with more taxes.

It must be noted that parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities often turn to independent schools, because support is not available in local state schools. Independent schools educate more than 100,000 children with SEND. That number tells its own story.

In the past year alone, 100 independent schools are reported to have closed their doors and a further 26 are predicted to follow this year. A small number of those were part of the natural churn, but the majority were not. They include primary and secondary schools, sixth-form colleges and special educational needs schools. The Liberal Democrats remain concerned that such ongoing closures will have a knock-on effect in some areas of the country, which will see an increase in pupils applying and entering the state school system. In Kent, for example, nearly 100 state school inquiries were made in just 48 hours, after the independent Bishop Challoner school announced its closure. The state school system is already struggling with large class sizes, declining teacher numbers and increasing numbers of pupils with SEND. The Government cannot expect the state sector to absorb the pressures that these increased numbers will bring.

The Liberal Democrats, however, do believe that independent schools benefiting from VAT exemptions should give back to their local communities. Indeed, many already do, through shared facilities, joint programmes and genuine partnerships with neighbouring state schools. We want to see that best practice become universal, with investment proportional to school size and fees, and schools expected to demonstrate their contribution through the inspection process. Faith schools in particular often have a strong tradition of community service that goes well beyond the school gates. We should recognise that and see it built upon.

The Government must look seriously at the negative impact of VAT on faith and non-faith independent schools, the impact on the state sector, and the very real financial burden on families who have already paid tax into the system. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to address the concerns expressed today.

Student Loan Repayment Plans

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair today, Ms Lewell, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) on securing this debate.

As we have heard, there are many graduates in this country who make loan payments every month and yet they see their loan balances grow. They are young professionals whose loan statements bear no resemblance to the deal they thought they were signing up to. At the same time, there are students who cannot afford to eat and university finances are precarious across the sector. The systems feel broken, so this debate really matters, and those listening deserve a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong and a credible path forward. Let me try to give both.

When the plan 2 system was designed, graduates were promised something specific: that they would repay only when earning above a certain threshold, that the threshold would rise with earnings, and that whatever remained after 30 years would be written off—a mechanism to share the cost of higher education between the individual and the state. A higher interest rate for higher earners was a deliberate feature—a progressive measure. Those graduates earning the most would contribute more, to make the system sustainable for those who could not. For many graduates at the time, that deal, however imperfect, felt manageable.

However, there is a problem: successive Governments have treated those promises as suggestions. In 2016, the threshold was frozen when it was supposed to rise, not because the economy required that, but because it was a convenient way to extract more from graduates without the political difficulty of imposing a tax rise. The threshold jumped significantly in 2022, but it was then frozen again, then raised again. Now the Government have given in to the same temptation, budgeting to freeze it for three more years. What graduates have experienced is not a coherent system operating as originally designed, but a set of rules that keep getting rewritten by whoever needs to balance the books that year. That is a core injustice.

To that political failure, though, we must add an economic failure. In the early years of this decade, inflation ran at levels that few foresaw when the system was designed in 2012. RPI, the basis for the interest rate, exceeded 13%. There was a cap on interest rates during that period, which in principle was welcome, but it was implemented too late, and the cap was set too high to make a meaningful difference for most borrowers. Meanwhile, graduates’ starting salaries barely moved in real terms. Interest-linked to a discredited inflation measure running hot, while earnings stood still—that combination has been toxic and the system had no mechanism to correct it.

Although plan 2 graduates suffered from the accumulation of damage caused by those political and economic circumstances, the last Government introduced plan 5. Plan 5 graduates face a lower repayment threshold and a 40-year repayment period before write-off—terms that in many respects are harder than those faced by their predecessors. I hope we do not lose sight of the plan 2 or plan 5 cohort in this debate, because any serious reform of the system must address both.

Before I move on to what can be done about loan repayments, I want to say something briefly about students who are struggling right now. The abolition of maintenance grants after the coalition ended in 2015 loaded the highest debt on to the students least able to bear it. Those from the poorest backgrounds now graduate with significantly more debt, not from their fees but from the additional maintenance borrowing. The level of support has fallen 10% in real terms from its peak. Students skip meals, work hours that damage their studies, and are unable to participate fully in the education that they are notionally receiving. The Government have reintroduced £1,000 grants for maintenance for certain subjects, but the full reintroduction of meaningful maintenance grants for the most disadvantaged students must be a priority.

The most urgent action on repayments requires no review, but a decision: reverse the threshold freeze over the next three years and tie it to earnings, as graduates were originally promised. I hope the Minister can give graduates that commitment today.

For the structural reform that the system genuinely needs, we need to go beyond any single parameter. We need to design interest and repayment structures that are genuinely progressive across the income distribution, including by ditching the discredited link to RPI. We must build a system that also works for people studying flexibly and later in life, not just for 18-year-olds on three or four-year degrees. We are seeing more move to modular courses, so the system needs to be able to cater for that.

Structural reform is needed, which is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a cross-party royal commission on graduate finance reform. I anticipate that some will see that as a delay, but I do not think it is. We need action on the threshold action now, but the commission needs to address a different, harder question: how do we build a system that future Governments cannot quietly dismantle the moment that fiscal pressure mounts? Every change made retrospectively to the terms has broken a promise to people who made life decisions based on them. Cross-party consensus with independent oversight of key parameters is the only protection against that happening again.

I would like to directly address the suggestion made explicitly by the official Opposition that the answer to fiscal pressure in the student finance system is to have drastically fewer students, and to cut courses, close departments and focus support on degrees whose graduates earn enough to repay quickly. That gets the diagnosis backwards. The graduate earnings premium has declined in Britian, not because we have too many graduates but because we have too few skilled jobs. Many of our peers in the OECD have expanded graduate numbers while maintaining or even raising the earnings premium. We should be asking why those countries have generated skilled professional jobs in a way that Britain has failed to do.

Cutting student numbers accepts that failure as permanent, but that is a counsel of despair. It also fails on its own terms. Setting aside the inherent value of the creative arts—many have made that point—that sector contributes enormously to the economy and enriches all our lives. Arts and humanities courses are also cheaper to deliver, and help to support expensive, lab-based science, technology, engineering and mathematics provision. Cutting 100,000 arts places would not simply reduce the loan book; it would undermine the financial model of the very STEM courses that the Conservatives claim to prioritise.

[Mr Charters]

Before the hon. Gentleman concludes, does he agree that the architects of plan 2 need to say one simple word—sorry?

[Ian Sollom]

I am not personally an architect of plan 2, but the former leader of my party did say sorry, and my party was appropriately punished at the 2015 general election.

The decline in the graduate earnings premium is, at its root, a story about economic underperformance, and that points towards the solution. Universities are not simply places that people go to acquire qualifications; they are also research engines, regional anchors, training grounds for public services and drivers of the innovation that creates the skilled employment that graduates need. The answer to graduates being squeezed is not fewer graduates; it is more skilled jobs generated by the research, commercialisation and civic investment that universities are well positioned to deliver. We face a choice: managed decline, fewer students, fewer courses, talent lost and regions left behind; or transformation—treating universities like the national assets that they are. Graduates and the country deserve better. I hope that the Minister can signal in his response that the Government are making a start on that.

Universities: Statutory Duty of Care

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing this important debate.

I acknowledge the families who have suffered the devastating loss of their loved one at such a young age. In particular, I recognise Natasha Abrahart’s parents for their campaigning to prevent other families from enduring what they experienced. I am grateful for the time that they spent with me to share Natasha’s story and their concerns about how universities support students in crisis. It is because of families like theirs that we are having this debate today, and we owe it to them to get it right.

Although much of this debate has rightly focused on mental health support, universities have a broader duty of care to their students. It encompasses physical safety, appropriate academic adjustments, protection from harassment and ensuring that institutional practices do not place unreasonable pressure on vulnerable students. The Liberal Democrats believe that universities should be held accountable for the support that they provide to their students as part of those duties.

We have heard a lot of numbers and statistics about students’ mental health challenges. In the interests of time, I will not dig into those further. From the many meetings that I have had with universities and student organisations, it is clear that many care deeply about those studying with them and want to provide the best support to all who need it, but we also know that demand is rising and not all institutions are meeting what we might expect.

The question is how we ensure that support services are available, timely and fit for purpose, and that students know how to access them. Also, how do we ensure that institutional practices, from assessment methods to accommodation standards, properly support student wellbeing? Support can come in a number of forms, catering to different student populations and localities, among other things, but I hope we would all agree that there should be a consistent approach across all universities to ensure that support is available when and where it is needed.

That is where the university mental health charter, devised by the charity Student Minds, could have an important role to play. Signing up to the charter is currently voluntary for universities, and just over 100 of the 165 have signed up. All universities are being asked to sign up by the end of this year. That should be encouraged, to ensure a base level of support for all students from the start of their higher education experience.

To address universities’ duty-of-care responsibilities, a voluntary aspiration must evolve into a rigorous accountability mechanism. That means not just mental health services, but ensuring that institutional policies and practices properly support student wellbeing. Universities must not only sign up to the charter, but demonstrate that they are adhering to a full strategy, with clear standards, regular independent assessment and consequences for non-compliance; providing details and evidence of direct signposting of services to students; dedicated individuals responsible for ensuring that well-structured welfare checks are carried out; and timely delivery of services when needed.

I was going to give a couple of examples from the University of the West of England, as I have been really impressed by its leadership on the issue. It does not have a one-size-fits-all solution, which is food for thought for other institutions and the Minister. However, in the interests of time I will just encourage the Minister to look into that. Importantly, the university’s approach is not just about counselling; it is about co-ordinating work across the institution to ensure that students with mental health conditions receive appropriate academic adjustments where necessary, that assessment practices are flexible when needed, and that support wraps around the whole student experience.

As others have said today, it is important to recognise that universities cannot solve this problem alone. We need much stronger partnerships between universities and NHS mental health services. Students should not fall into gaps between university counselling and clinical NHS provision when they most need support. When students move away to university, they often lose the continuity in NHS services that may have supported them at home. The student mental health agreement, which facilitates the sharing of information, with consent, between universities and NHS services, must be implemented consistently across all institutions.

Finally, the area that is perhaps hardest to address is the cultural change required among students, families and staff across universities. It is vital that students who are suffering feel comfortable and safe to disclose any issues they may have in order to seek and access the support and services they need. We can only do so by continuing to talk.

We owe it to the families of those young people who are no longer with us to ensure that we adopt a system-wide approach to providing the best access to support and services at universities, as well as bringing about much-needed cultural change to prevent further tragedies in the future.