Student Loan Repayment Plans

Olly Glover Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered student loan repayment plans.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. Students across the country have been protesting the unfairness of the student loan system—a system that millions of young people believe is rigged against them and in urgent need of reform. On that I suspect there will be broad agreement—at least I hope so. But this system did not appear by accident. It was designed in 2012, expanded thereafter and defended for over a decade by people who now criticise it.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

I was not intending to intervene, but I am afraid what the hon. Member said is not correct. Tuition fees were first introduced by the Conservative Government in the early 1990s and then by the Labour Government in 1998, with top-up fees in 2004. Will he accept that and then proceed?

[Jas Athwal]

I will expand on this as I go on, because I think everybody is involved, and I shall distribute responsibility fairly across the board.

Since 2012, around 5.8 million people have taken out plan 2 loans. They were told that university was the gateway to opportunity, that it would pay for itself and that repayments would be manageable. Instead, many now feel that they signed up at 18 years of age with no financial advice and no lived experience to a 30-year financial commitment where the rules can be changed unilaterally, arbitrarily and without consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for introducing this debate.

I would like to use my limited time to tell the stories of two of my constituents. One of them is Rebecca, a health worker who is an NHS band 6 employee. For those unfamiliar with NHS pay bands, as I am, that is between £38,600 and £46,600 a year. She has raised concerns about the impact that her student loan repayments are having on her finances and day-to-day life. She says:

“It feels like a lifelong debt that’s impossible to reduce…Looking at the bigger picture is even more frustrating. Between 2019 and 2025, almost £18,000 in interest has been added to my loan, despite the fact that I’ve been working and making repayments the entire time. It feels like I’m being penalised for staying in steady employment rather than making real progress on the debt…I worry that this system will discourage people from training for essential professions like healthcare.”

Another constituent, Alexandra, works at Culham Campus, a site for fusion energy research and many other industries. She says that,

“completing a PhD was absolutely necessary to pursue my career in essential scientific research…As they stand, those who choose to embark on a PhD are disadvantaged further by committing to 3-6 years of time in which they will be unable to pay off student loans due to PhD stipends falling under the repayment limit, I am likely to pay significantly more towards my student loan than was originally billed before it is written off purely because as an undergraduate I came from a low income family and I received the full subsistence and fee loans.”