Student Loans

Rosie Wrighting Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Georgia Gould]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. As she knows, increasing security for women on maternity leave is a really important part of this Government’s agenda, and that is why we are taking forward the Employment Rights Act 2025. It is important to note that in the system, if income goes below a threshold and someone is out of work generally, they will not have to pay. That is very different from a commercial loan, but I will absolutely take her point back.

The student loan system delivers tuition fee funding—some £10.7 billion in 2024-25—to our world-class higher education sector, a sector that remains by any objective metric one of our nation’s greatest exports and a global beacon of intellectual excellence. It is important that we remember what is at stake here. From pioneering laboratories developing quantum computing and agritech to those at the forefront of advanced manufacturing and genomics, our universities are the primary engines of the research that will define the 21st century, and the impact of our universities goes beyond their pivotal contribution to the economy and the careers of individual learners. By exposing students to diverse perspectives and expanding their social horizons, these institutions help our young people to build the networks, resilience and life skills that define a person long after they have graduated.

[Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)]

I have a creative arts degree. Not only did it give me the opportunity to meet people, importantly, it enabled me to access the fashion industry as somebody growing up outside of London. Does the Minister share my concern that removing those degrees would create London-centric creative industries?

[Georgia Gould]

I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful point. Her creative arts degree was of huge benefit in getting her to this place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)]

Eighteen months ago, my constituents in Kettering chose to elect a 26-year-old as their MP. I believe they did so because they wanted a Labour Government, but also because young people in my constituency, and their parents and grandparents, wanted me to speak of my own experience of how tough it has been for my generation.

One of the tasks we navigate as MPs is how best to use our privileged position in this building to influence change.

As often one of the only young people in the Chamber, and almost always the only young woman—[Interruption.] Okay, depending on what we define as young. [Interruption.] Okay, let me say as one of the only women in their 20s in this Chamber, I try to share the perspective of a younger person. I often felt that that was missing in debates when I watched politics as I was growing up. I shall share that perspective in this debate using my own experience, and in doing so I hope to highlight the generational inequalities that have turned into deep-felt frustration—a frustration that made me join a political party, that made me campaign for a change in Government and that drives me in this place every single day.

I declare the fact that I have a plan 2 student loan close to £90,000. Before getting elected to this place, I was working full time for years, just watching my student loan grow. In Kettering, I grew up in a single-parent household. My mum, who is a youth worker, raised me by herself. At school, like so many others, I struggled to work out what I wanted to do and what I wanted my career path to look like. What I knew more than anything else was that I wanted to work hard enough to give myself a better life. It was so clearly communicated to me at school that that route to a better life was going to university. On reflection, I wish someone had spoken to me about apprenticeships and other options.

In the desire that many young people have to build themselves a better life, I and people around me did the things that we were told to do: we worked hard, we went to uni, and we got a degree. There is a lot said about what Gen Z expect from life, but ordinary hope and ordinary aspiration, despite what social media tells us, is not to live in Dubai, or to buy avocados and an iced matcha every day; it is to live in a home that we are not worried we will be kicked out of.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is giving a powerful speech. On behalf of her generation, is she disappointed that, having promised to reduce the costs for graduates repaying student loans, the Government are making it worse? Is she disappointed that, when challenged over this broken system, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the hon. Lady and people like her are at the back of the queue?

[Rosie Wrighting]

There are many levers that this Government can pull to make life better for graduates. I understand that, given the economic situation, some of those levers are easier to pull than others. I am glad that measures such as the Renters’ Rights Act 2026 are coming forward and making a difference for my generation every single day. I have voiced my view that the system is not fair and that I would like my Government to look at it, and I think that that has been heard.

Let me return to what I was saying. We want to be able to live in a home that we are not worried we will get kicked out of, and even one day not to have to live with strangers or parents. We want to be able to make the choice to have a child if that is right, and to decide to go on holiday without maxing out our credit cards. I do not think that that is asking too much. That is hope and aspiration. I want to live in a country where it is reasonable for ordinary young people to want those things and, more importantly, to think that they are achievable.

Of all the damage that the Conservatives did, one of the worst things for me was the damage to hope. I started university in 2016. My tuition fees were £9,000 a year, but my maintenance loan was £12,000 a year. I am now paying back more not because my education cost more, but because I came from a low-income family and needed that support to live.

[Danny Beales]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. This place is much better for her presence, speaking up for people in her situation. It sounds like we had a similar background, but I was fortunate enough to be on a plan 1 system and, under a Labour Government, benefited not only from an educational maintenance allowance to stay on at sixth form, but from grants as well as loans. It sounds like she was not able to benefit from that because of the Conservative party. Does she agree that the restoring of maintenance grants and the uplifting of maintenance loans to match the cost of living will benefit people who come from backgrounds such as ours?

[Rosie Wrighting]

I do not think it has been talked about enough in this debate, or in the debate more widely, just how much is added on for students who have to take out a large maintenance loan because they come from a low-income family. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that.

When maintenance grants were scrapped by the Conservatives, that cost did not disappear.

[Rebecca Smith]

The hon. Lady is giving an excellent speech, but there is a whole cohort of plan 1 students who experienced the exact situation that she is describing. In 1997, Tony Blair said that he would not introduce tuition fees. In 1998, he did, and the Labour party then also scrapped maintenance grants. I was 16 in 1997 and was suddenly faced with needing to pay fees and get a loan in order to go to university, and had no family support to afford it. It is important that we recognise that it was the Labour Government who did that in 1998, having said that they would not. We can give just as many examples of decisions that the previous Labour Government made as we can of those made by the previous Government.

[Rosie Wrighting]

I was born in 1997, so the hon. Lady will forgive me if I cannot recollect that. I do not think that graduates are arguing that we should not pay. There is an understanding that graduates should pay for their degrees; it is the scale and fairness within the system that I want to highlight.

When maintenance grants were scrapped, the cost did not disappear; it was simply shifted. It was shifted on to students and turned into debt, and the burden was put on those from the lowest-income families. The very policy that enabled working-class kids to go to university gave us the highest debt as soon as we left. That is not fairness, and that is not opportunity. It is generational inequality designed into a system that disproportionately impacts people who do not have a savings account waiting for them when they turn 18, who do not have the money for a house deposit, and who cannot ask for help for childcare.

That is why I welcome this Government taking steps to strengthen maintenance support, including through the return of maintenance grants. If the Conservatives truly cared about those students, I would have expected them to welcome that.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I too welcome the reintroduction of maintenance grants, which, let us be clear, were scrapped by George Osborne when he was left to his own devices in 2015. However, does the hon. Lady accept that £1,000 a year for certain selected subjects will not even touch the sides and suggests that some poor students deserve support but not others? Does she think that that is the right way forward?

[Rosie Wrighting]

I appreciate that it is a start. I welcome our introduction of £1,000, but I do think there is more to do. I also acknowledge that we are in a tough economic environment and this is what the Government have chosen to prioritise.

It is not by accident that my generation have it so hard. Make no mistake: these decisions were taken by the Conservative party when they were in government. They asked my generation to do more with less, to bear a heavier burden, and then left us behind. The Tories calling this debate today, pretending that they have the answers to fix the system that they broke, is insulting to young people across this country.

[Graham Stuart]

Would the hon. Lady not find it rather worse if we were not reflecting on our time in power and the fact that we were thrown out and were not trying to come forward with constructive proposals to make things better? The important thing is to listen to people like the hon. Lady and our constituents, reflect and come forward with proposals. That is what we are doing. We are trying to look forward, not play some history game.

[Rosie Wrighting]

The previous Conservative Member who intervened asked me about 1997, so there is some looking back going on. I would welcome the Conservatives reflecting on their time in power, but unfortunately that is not what I have seen today and it is not the tone of the conversation that I hear coming from the party.

The Tories are calling on the Government to change the plan 2 repayment system, when they designed plan 2 student loans; to end repayment thresholds, when they froze them; and to create more apprenticeships, when they left one in eight young people not earning or learning. When we hear the Conservative party now proposing to cut interest rates on student loans, we have to ask: where was this concern when they were in government? Where was this concern for the thousands of young people—my peers, my friends, people around me—facing high student loan payments today?

The reality is that what Opposition Front Benchers are proposing would disproportionately benefit the highest earners—those most likely to pay off their loans in full—do little for the majority of graduates, and do almost nothing for those from low-income backgrounds, who are less likely ever to clear their debts. It is the same Conservative party.

I feel strongly that we now have a chance to say something to young people about their future, because after years of broken promises what we see is frustration, and something more dangerous than that: a loss of belief that working hard will mean people will get on. When that belief goes, opportunity goes with it. The real legacy of the last 14 years is not just high debt but diminished hope. I genuinely believe that it is only Labour that offers the chance to restore fairness between generations—not headline-grabbing tweets—and we are starting to do that by strengthening support for renters, delivering the youth guarantee, expanding childcare and taking steps to ensure that maintenance support works for students, not against them.

It is only Labour that can do something bigger and restore to an entire generation the belief that if you work hard, whether at school, at work, at university or through an apprenticeship, you can build a better life. That is a real life, with a secure home, the ability to start a family and confidence that efforts will be rewarded with opportunity. When my mum encouraged me to pursue education, she believed that she was giving me a better life. That is what young people deserve today: not just to be able to hope for a better future, but to have that within their reach.

[Several hon. Members rose—]