Student Loans

Alex McIntyre 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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

I have said this in the House before, but I will say it again: this is a Prime Minister who promised change and then changed his promise. On this subject, we only have to look at his 10-point plan from 2020. He said:

“My promise to you is that I will maintain our radical values and work tirelessly to get Labour in to power—so that we can advance the interests of the people our party was created to serve. Based on the moral case for socialism, here is where I stand.”

In point 2, he said:

“Support the abolition of tuition fees and invest in lifelong learning.”

He was right that Labour won a landslide election, but, strangely enough, that promise has gone.

[Alex McIntyre]

It was not in the manifesto.

[Dr Evans]

Exactly. It was not in the manifesto, and the Prime Minister made a promise. He made a promise when he stood to be Labour leader, and it was not there. Worse still, what did he do in his first Budget? He increased student fees from £9,250 to £9,535. And last year, he froze the thresholds. That is important, because he promised one thing and then changed his promise.

When it comes to student loans, we have heard a lot of tittle-tattle on both sides of the House, but all parties—including the Liberal Democrats, wherever they happen to be—have a responsibility. In 1998, it was Tony Blair who brought forward tuition fees. He then increased them in 2004. Then there was an increase in the coalition years, which the Liberal Democrats stood on an election manifesto not to do. And here we are now, having just been over what the Labour Government said they were going to do and now have done.

Does it really matter? Yes, there was an issue hidden in the plan 2 student loan, but it has come to fruition because of what we have seen across the globe. I do not think anyone was raising those concerns back then, but the Government have to deal with things that come up. That is what we are looking for today. That is what students outside this place will be listening for. Two years in, what is the solution? At the end of the day, it is the middle earners who are being squeezed. It is unfair, because no matter how hard they work, their debt is going up. Principally, regardless of our political position, I think we all agree that is unfair.

The question is how we solve it. When the Chancellor was asked that question, she said:

“So, yes, we want to fix it. Yes, we want to make improvements. But is it front of the queue? No, it’s not... Politics is about priorities. I’m not denying there is a problem. I’m not blind to that, but what I do say is there has to be some patience.”

Tell that to the hon. Member for Kettering (Rosie Wrighting) or the people from Hinckley and Bosworth whose debt, no matter what they do or how hard they earn, is going up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as I am a former student with a plan 2 loan. I became a student during the first year that plan 2 loans were introduced. I remind hon. Members that I had a very tough Saturday job when I was growing up, in case anyone is shocked that I am indeed young enough to be a plan 2 student.

Frankly, I am shocked at the brass neck of Conservative Members. When I was at school, I remember having conversations with other working-class kids like me who were thinking about going to university—I was the first in my family—who were being put off because the Conservatives had put up the fees from £3,000 to £9,000. There was no consideration then for what young people were going through. There was no plan for young people, and certainly not for young people like me, who grew up in communities like the ones that I grew up in, with parents who never had the opportunities that all the Conservative Members at that time had got for free.

[Dr Luke Evans]

As a doctor, I was lucky enough to have funding to go towards my education, but I am always surprised to hear people saying that we should put more funding into students on the back of the porters and the receptionists who never went to university. It is those people’s taxes that are supporting those students—that 50% helped to get me where I am. What does the hon. Gentleman say to people like those in his community? They are the ones who are being left behind by paying their taxes for other people to have their time at university.

[Alex McIntyre]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased that I am coming to exactly that point later in my speech.

Of course there are challenges with this system. There were challenges with it back when it was introduced in 2012. We pointed out the fact that there are huge generational inequalities: there are hon. Members present in the Chamber who did not pay tuition fees at all and had lower house prices when they graduated, so they could afford to buy a house. Those challenges continue, and part of the reason that I got into politics was to deal with those intergenerational inequalities. We all talk about broken promises, but what happened to the promise about levelling up? In my mind, levelling up was about creating more opportunities for young people in places like mine in Gloucester, but those opportunities were never delivered by the Conservatives.

I want what is best for young people and for the university sector in my constituency. I am delighted to be able to take this opportunity to welcome the brand new university campus that the University of Gloucestershire has opened in the city centre, taking over the Debenhams building and creating a new campus for students, with a public library, so that young people in Gloucester can see what that opportunity looks like going forward.

We need to ensure that we are creating opportunities for all young people, because despite the move towards more people going to university, only a third of people in Gloucestershire will go to university, and in the most deprived parts of my constituency, that number is fewer than one in five. That is why I am proud that the Government are introducing maintenance grants, and why I am backing the new target of two thirds of young people going to university or doing gold-standard apprenticeships, because university might not be the best route for everybody. Generations of young people in my community were left behind by the Conservatives, who had no plan in Government for young people in my constituency.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is making an impassioned speech and we hear where he is coming from, but over the 14 years of Conservative Government, 800 jobs were created every day and unemployment was brought down to near record lows. Since his party has come to power, with the mission that he is describing, what has happened? Unemployment is up by 25% and youth unemployment has now eclipsed even that of Europe. The Government are not delivering. I hope in the next part of his speech, he is going to talk about what the Government need to do now in order to make things better for young people, because at the moment every indicator is going the wrong way, including the cost of student loans.

[Alex McIntyre]

I am always happy to be educated by privately educated Oxbridge graduates who did not pay a penny for their student fees. The right hon. Gentleman will find that employment levels have actually gone up. The number of people in employment has gone up under this Government—[Interruption.] Well, that’s the stat. If he wants to check, he is more than welcome to.

I welcome the youth guarantee that the Government have talked about this week, introducing more apprenticeships and opportunities for young people and tackling the people in my constituency who have been furthest from employment. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Rosie Wrighting) made a fantastic speech about some of the other things we are doing for young people. It is not just about education; it is about renters’ rights and expanding free childcare.

[Dr Spencer]

I am not privately educated, and nor did I go to Oxbridge. I am where I am today because I went to a state grammar school. The hon. Gentleman is making an impassioned speech about breaking down barriers to social opportunity. Would he agree that grammar schools are a key part of that?

[Alex McIntyre]

Gloucester has a number of grammar schools and they are doing very well for the students there. I went to a grammar school—[Hon. Members: “Oh!] I went to a state school, and my parents worked really hard to get me there. If Members want to talk about my background, where I came from and how I got to this place, I am very happy to do that. It was quite different from the background of a lot of people on the Conservative Benches.

I am proud to stand here, as the son of a train conductor, talking about opportunities for young people in my constituency who have been left behind for generations, written off and, quite frankly, talked down to by the Conservatives, who talk about making sure that the arts are only for the wealthiest who can afford to go to university and not be spread out, as if education is not actually a benefit to everyone in society and should only be in the purview of those who can afford to pay for it. It is disgraceful, it is taking us back generations and, quite frankly, I am sick to death of hearing about it.

Politics is the language of priorities. As I have said, there are undoubtedly challenges with this system, but the Conservatives left behind so many messes after 14 failed years in government that we cannot fix them all in the first five years of a Labour Government. We are going to need at least a decade. We said that in the manifesto. We talked about a decade of national renewal, and we are committed to that because we cannot afford to fix all the messes that you left behind straight away because you left the economy in a mess as well—[Interruption.] Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. They left the economy in a mess—you had nothing to do with it.

I would say to the Minister, as a parent and as someone who is on plan 2 and has spoken to lots of my residents, that if there is money available and if there is an opportunity, we need to look at the expansion of free childcare. We are talking about priorities and how we can support young people at the moment, and the 30 hours of funded childcare is very welcome, but it does not cover the cost of childcare for people who are working full time throughout the year, not just in term time. That is preventing young people from starting their families and getting on, and this could be a really good opportunity if there was money available. This is about priorities and about how we can support young people. I welcome what the Government are doing, but if I were to give them a gentle nudge in any direction, I would encourage them to look again at what we can do to expand the offering of free childcare.

I am not going to take lectures from the Conservatives on young people. They had no plan for young people during their 14 years. They did not care about young people like me when they were in government. Quite frankly, they wrote me off and I had to fight my way to get here today—[Interruption.] Yes, I did go to a grammar school and I am proud of that. I did quite well for myself, but my parents sacrificed a lot for me to get here, so I am not going to take lectures from the Conservatives on that. This Government are fixing the mess that they left behind. Of course there are challenges in the system, but I welcome the measures that the Government have taken so far, and long may that continue.