Financial Inclusion: Young People

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for securing this important debate on an issue that matters greatly to my constituents. My first job was as a paper boy; I would not say that I had to lie, but I certainly had to say that I was a little bit older than I really was to secure the job.

In a debate about financial inclusion, it would be remiss of me not to mention student loans, one of the greatest barriers to young people achieving financial security. In the financial inclusion strategy, the Government rightly recognised the importance of embedding financial literacy in the curriculum to empower young people to make informed financial decisions. However, there remains a glaring gap when it comes to student loans. Young people seeking to go to university do not have a proper understanding of what they are signing up to. They are either unaware of the scale of the student debt they may incur or are misled into believing that student loans are not real loans. Some are told, “You don’t even have to pay them back.”

One constituent told me that although she wanted to pursue an apprenticeship, she was instead encouraged to go to university. All the virtues of university were relayed to her, but none of the drawbacks. She was told that student loans would be the easiest loans she would ever take out. Now she is saddled with tens of thousands of pounds-worth of debt and mounting anxiety about how she will ever pay it back. Financial literacy cannot simply mean learning about taxes, savings and budgeting. It must also mean understanding student loans, the first debt many young people will ever take on, so that they can make a genuinely informed decision about whether university is the right path for them.

Although I welcome the Government’s ambition to encourage saving and prevent people from being burdened by debt, unless we fully address the student loans crisis, millions of young people will be saddled with loans of around £30,000 and upwards right at the precipice of their adult lives. The debts continue to grow despite repayments, imposing a seemingly insurmountable financial burden on young people for the majority of their working lives. That inevitably impacts their ability to save. A Barclays survey revealed that savers with student loans put away £2,000 a year less than their peers without student debt.

If we are serious about improving financial inclusion, helping young people to save and building financial resilience, we cannot ignore their single biggest financial commitment, which many of them make before they have even entered the workplace and can end up feeling for the majority of their working lives. I welcome the Government’s financial inclusion strategy and the steps they are taking to ensure financial inclusion for young people, but we must tackle every barrier to financial security. That includes addressing a student loan system that leaves young people feeling weighed down by debt before they even have the chance to get ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

He says he did not, but he served in her Cabinet, so I will take no lectures from Conservative Members. The country will have heard what the Leader of the Opposition said today: she was talking down our economy in a desperate attempt to get attention. The truth is, as Members on the Opposition Benches know, that that is not serious and it is irresponsible. The only thing in Britain that needs a bail-out is the Tory party—from its failed leadership.

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

7. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help increase economic growth through reforms to the planning system.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)]

In the spending review, we put significant money into building more houses as part of our commitment to build 1.5 million homes during the course of this Parliament. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is currently making its way through the House of Lords, but more than 600 amendments have been tabled to it, mainly by peers from Opposition parties. The Labour party and this Government back the builders, whereas the Opposition parties back the blockers. They are stopping young people getting on the housing ladder, stopping renewable energy being built and stopping the transport infrastructure that we desperately need to be built. Instead of opposing and tabling amendments, the Opposition parties should back that Bill so that we can get Britain building.

[Jas Athwal]

I have been banging the drum for some time now that Ilford is the best place to live, and with four Elizabeth line stations, that has never been more true than now. Barking and Dagenham council and Redbridge council are both capitalising on ambitious regeneration plans, like the developments at Billet Road and Padnall Lake. What are the Government doing to encourage businesses to seize on this investment by making investments of their own, backing Ilford, its community and its economy?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for everything that he is doing to champion Ilford South and to bring more investment into his local community. It is great to have Labour councils working with a Labour Government to bring investment to local communities through housing and, crucially, through infrastructure—the schools and the doctors’ surgeries—that go alongside that new housing, so that we build not just homes but communities.

Government Performance against Fiscal Rules

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I refer the hon. Lady to my previous answer.

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

The Conservatives are responsible for the dangerous dismantling of all our public services, stagnant wages and inflation rates that peaked at 11%. Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agree not just with me, but also with former Chancellor George Osborne, who said that the Leader of the Opposition has no “credible economic plan”? We should not be taking advice from a party responsible for 14 years of degradation.

[Darren Jones]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that we are taking no advice from the Conservative party on our approach to the economy, given their dismal record.

Regional Growth

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming today’s historic level of funding into transport, which, as she rightly alludes to, will fix historic failures that other parties promised to fix over many years. She is also right to point to the fact that these transport investments unlock jobs and opportunities for people in the broader region, including in her area, as well as sports, leisure and creative arts opportunities. I know that she will work closely with our brilliant Labour Mayor of the West Midlands to ensure the money is spent on the people’s priorities.

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

To build on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), can the Minister confirm that, alongside the investments announced today, London too will receive support to develop its infrastructure? Broadmead bridge is still closed and the Central line is creaking at the seams, and the spending review next week will enable our capital to unlock the housing it so desperately needs and allow London to remain a world-leading city.

[Darren Jones]

London continues to be a crucial engine for growth for the whole country and important to us all as our capital city. I know that my hon. Friend will continue to work with our brilliant Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan to make sure that investment is tackling the problems that he has raised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

10. What steps she is taking through the spending review to help increase levels of economic growth.

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

11. What steps she is taking through the spending review to help increase levels of economic growth.

[Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)]

14. What steps she is taking through the spending review to help increase levels of economic growth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Reeves]

I absolutely agree, and that is why we have reversed the Conservatives’ decisions to cut capital spending. Instead, we are preserving that capital investment, which means spending £113 billion more on road, rail, energy, homes and digital infrastructure than would have been spent in the plans we inherited. We are also spending on day-to-day things, such as making sure that we have police on our streets, and working with our mayors, including Mayor Steve Rotheram, to ensure we get investment into the places that most need it.

[Jas Athwal]

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. In Ilford South we have many small businesses, ranging from restaurants like Delhi O Delhi, Mr Bunns Bakery, tea shops like Mi Chaii to local shops like the Chopra convenience stores. They make Ilford an amazing place to eat, shop and do business. Will the Chancellor join me in commending the local businesses that make the high street the beating heart of Ilford South, and will she lay out what steps she is taking to support these entrepreneurs?

High Street Bank Closures

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery]

That is absolutely reasonable, is it not?

The decision by Link or the Financial Conduct Authority is basically transactional. It does not really look at the community factors—it looks at a lot of different factors, but those do not count as points toward the overall result or announcement that there will be the go-ahead for additional services. That must change. It must embrace everything that is happening; it cannot be because the banks are leaving, which they have been on pace because of the profit margins. We have to start looking after communities and vulnerable people—the frail, the elderly and the disabled—in places like that and we need to change the regulations.

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate and for his powerful points. On the point that the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) just made, in recent years my constituency has become a banking desert—literally deprived of banks on high streets. For my neighbours living in Chadwell Heath, the nearest branch is some 40 minutes away and that is probably how long it takes to go from one end of my constituency to the other. Banks are not just profit-making organisations; they also offer a valuable service, and that has to be recognised. Does my hon. Friend agree that local banks as well as post offices and bank hubs have to be left on our high streets because of the service they provide, particularly to deprived communities?

[Ian Lavery]

Absolutely. It is essential and that is the whole reason behind this debate. I will get back to that.

I was more or less guaranteed, unofficially, that we had qualified in Bedlington. I was dumbfounded to see, when Link’s assessment was published some months later, that it suggested no additional services—no action to support the elderly woman from Bedlington station who banked in person on a weekly basis on Front Street, used the opportunity to speak with trusted members of staff without worrying about falling prey to scammers, met her friend for a coffee on Bedlington Front Street and took the opportunity to visit some local shops and spend a few pounds in the process.

There was no assessment of the impact on that woman, on other residents or on local businesses of allowing high street banking to be lost with no banking hub provided; no assessment of the impact on people like her who are now travelling to a neighbouring town and spending their money there instead. On inspection, it appeared that we had been turned down because there was a bank in Cramlington located 0.1 km closer to Bedlington Front Street, as the crow flies, than the regulations suggested were appropriate. That is why we were declined—because of 0.1 km—and it is time that that sort of thing was addressed.

We need to look at issues in the community such as deprivation, elderly people and those who, as the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned, are in desperate need of facilities on the high street. I immediately applied to Link and, as advised by its parliamentary liaison officer, I submitted an appeal, which was summarily dismissed without much discussion. I emphasised that Bedlington, as the fourth-largest town in Northumberland, should not need to use facilities in other towns.