Student Loans

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises that point. I totally agree with him that it is something that needs to be looked into and fixed.

As I have mentioned, we know that 10 times as many young people want an apprenticeship at 18 as there are places available. The demand is there, but the places are not. To me, it makes complete sense to move from funding dead-end courses at universities to giving young people the opportunity to do an apprenticeship that will get them into a job, and they will emerge from that apprenticeship with no debt. We want fundamental change to the system so that at 18, young people have a choice between a high-quality university place, an apprenticeship or going into work. That is a Conservative choice.

What is Labour’s response to that proposal? Last weekend, the Government announced that they will compensate for some of the mess that they created in the form of youth unemployment when they hiked up employer national insurance contributions, but they are robbing Peter to pay Paul—exactly the sort of economic thinking that we have come to expect. They are punishing employers with a jobs tax, which one of the Cabinet finally admitted this week has caused a huge spike in unemployment, and they are giving back £3,000, but only to those who have been on universal credit for six months. Fiddling with a system that needs fundamental reform and clearing up the mess of the Chancellor’s Budget is almost a full-time job for this Government.

The Conservatives are the only party putting forward a serious plan to help young people, whether by abolishing stamp duty for first-time buyers or through our new deal.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

The motion in the right hon. Lady’s name states that

“balances will never rise faster than RPI inflation”.

She was a senior Treasury Minister. Does she share my regret at the decision to suspend routine methodological improvements to the retail prices index, which led to the gap between the RPI and the lower consumer prices index rates more than doubling?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Georgia Gould]

Of course I recognise the critical role that FE colleges play in supporting children into the creative industries. That is why this Government are backing FE colleges after the previous Government failed to do so. However, we do not believe that closing down routes to university is the best way to support our creative industries. We can have both, and we can have opportunities for both.

[Laurence Turner]

Is it not also the case that kids from working-class backgrounds were increasingly shut out of traditional apprenticeship routes under the previous Government because of the artificial entrance requirements, which employers said were blocking them from hiring the best? Employers said that those requirements should be scrapped, but the Department for Education blocked that under its previous management.

[Georgia Gould]

We saw a 40% reduction in young people’s apprenticeships over a decade. That was the legacy of the Conservative party.

While the foundational principles of our higher education funding and student finance system might be solid, they are straining after more than a decade of neglect and mismanagement, on top of the structural flaws baked into the system by the Conservatives. First, a legacy of seven years of frozen tuition fees has contributed in no small part to a significant and growing number of English higher education providers facing financial challenges. Analysis published last autumn by the Office for Students indicates that without mitigating action, some 124 providers—45% of those included in the OfS financial sustainability report—could face a deficit in 2025-26.