Jessica Toale

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this important debate. We have a fundamental question to answer: is our higher education system set up to give young people, regardless of background, a fair chance? In a constituency such as Bournemouth West, part of an area with three universities and tens of thousands of students, I have seen at first hand how multiple changes to higher education funding consistently fall on students from low-income backgrounds—constraining them not by ability but by financial anxiety. We know that plan 2 loans have interest rates that mean balances balloon, and some students will never pay them back, and that graduates feel that they were mis-sold, but we have not yet discussed the impact that this is having on the job market. It is distorting behaviour, with graduate applicants asking for salaries below the repayment threshold to not trigger deductions. That is not how we should be shaping an ambitious economy in the modern world. In letters and emails from students, they ask for three things: that there be no further real-terms freezes to the repayment threshold, that interest rates be linked to CPI, and that there be a more progressive pay structure. Young people are calling for a fair and predictable settlement that reflects the contribution that they will make to our economy and society for decades to come. The least we can offer them is that clarity. If we truly believe that every young person, regardless of background, should be able to pursue higher education, we need to build financial architecture that does not undermine but supports that ambition.