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.