Student Loans

John Slinger Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

I am grateful to hon. Members for giving me such support. The right hon. Lady makes the point that creative arts subjects are perhaps not providing young people with job prospects. Would she not concede that we need people with creative arts skills and experience in our society and economy? The sector contributes £124 billion to our economy. What we need is what this Government are doing: investing in the creative arts sector. We need people who are skilled and trained in that sector so that they can do those jobs. She is offering only a litany of woe.

[Laura Trott]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening when I covered that point. The whole point is that those degrees do not lead to jobs in the creative arts industry. It is a mis-selling scandal. They promise a glittering career in the creative arts and do not actually deliver it. I think that is a problem, and I am sad that the hon. Gentleman does not think that.

What are students receiving in return for these enormous fees?

[John Slinger]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Laura Trott]

I will not. When the hon. Gentleman tried to intervene on me recently, he accused me of jumping on a bandwagon about rape gangs, so he will forgive me for not taking another intervention from him.

Too often, students are receiving minimal face-to-face teaching, limited supervision and a university experience that falls far short of what was promised. This is not a fair system and it is not a sustainable one either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

When I woke up this morning and sprang out of bed thinking about my upcoming 57th birthday, I was feeling quite young and sprightly, but having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Kettering (Rosie Wrighting) I feel particularly ancient and amazed that I have managed to get to my feet to give this speech. The hon. Lady gave a compelling and interesting speech, which gave those of us of an earlier vintage when it comes to university experience much to think about. The House should be grateful to her for what she had to say.

The Government’s prognosis is slightly odd. It seems to be, “It’s a terrible system—it’s broken and it’s not working. We will have a little think about it. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do or when we’re going to do it. You’re at the back of the queue, but we’re not going to tell you how long the queue is.” It like one of those call centre things where we are told, “Your call is important to us—please wait,” and we are waiting and waiting in the queue, but we do not know for how long. Such policy issues require long-term, settled solutions. It cries out to me as something that would really benefit from cross-party working, which would give some solidity and sense to long-term policy making.

I welcome the motion tabled by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, because it starts to address a pressing issue in our inboxes that is of concern to our constituents. Should we go back to the idea of a graduate tax? I do not know. It is clear that all Governments and all parties should view money spent on education in the university sector and elsewhere not as expenditure but as an investment, from which the state and society should have an expectation of a return.

It is crucial that we are sensitive on the point about controlling the number of places available. We do not want to reduce the evaluation of education to a utilitarian exercise, but clearly one has to look at value for money. Education is more than just the end of the process: it is an enriching, personal development, friend-making process providing us with all the keys to life’s doors as we face them.

When I went up to university way back in 1987—I do not suppose that the mother of the hon. Member for Kettering had even thought about her then—one in eight did so. That was not a sustainable figure if we wanted to see a growing economy. I had gone to an ordinary state school in south Wales and was the first in my family to go to university. Is 50% of our young a sustainable figure when clearly the job market is changing?

I welcome whatever anybody wishes to do to support vocational and technical education and apprenticeships. There are other ways. I say this—I suppose I must declare an interest—as someone whose eldest daughter is applying to university at the moment, but it is often my fellow sharp-elbowed middle-class parents who push their children towards university and fail to recognise the importance, value and use of apprenticeships and other forms of getting on in life. There needs to be a societal step change. We have to think seriously about that and particularly about supporting our FE colleges. Many of my young constituents attend Yeovil college, just over the border in Somerset. It is a first-class college with great ties to local businesses such as Leonardo, and it provides a good start in life for many young people in North Dorset.

I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Kettering about the benefit of stability that a settled future—putting down roots, starting a family and so on—can bring. We should encourage our young to think like that, but also to understand the wide range of educational opportunities that exist for them. We cannot ignore this any longer. Too many of our university institutions are just about hanging on in there financially, many are tottering on the brink, and we have a model that we cannot sustain, the utility of which is proving even harder to demonstrate to our constituents. I say to the Minister that doing nothing and putting this at the back of the queue is not a sustainable solution.

[John Slinger]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Of course—it gives me an extra minute.

[John Slinger]

The hon. Gentleman keeps referring to “the back of the queue”, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not say “back of the queue”. She actually said, after her Mais lecture:

“we want to make improvements. But is it front of the queue? No, it’s not.”

May I just say—[Laughter.] Right hon. and hon. Members can chunter from a sedentary position, but Conservative Members have repeatedly said “back of the queue”. That is not what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that point?

[Simon Hoare]

What I do accept is that the hon. Gentleman is swiftly gaining a reputation in this place as the only Labour Member who would defend a policy of the slaughter of the firstborn. He will defend anything. I seem to remember that he was one of the only Labour Members who stood up and defended Lord Mandelson’s appointment to be ambassador to Washington.

[John Slinger]

Will he give way?

[Simon Hoare]

No, I will not give way; one can be a useful idiot only so often in an afternoon. I say to the Minister: whether it is at the front of the queue, the back of the queue or the middle of the queue, this is an issue that cannot be put aside any longer.