Darren Paffey

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) on securing this important debate. Southampton is home to two excellent universities and yet in my constituency, only 7% of kids on free school meals will hold a degree by the time they are 22. Of those who do not receive free school meals in Itchen, just 19% will get there. If we go a few miles up the road to Winchester, however, that become 39%. We must make sure that higher education is not shut down as an option for young people. In my speech, I will focus on three points that are becoming worryingly clear about the funding system as it stands: it is not working for students, it is not working for universities, and—I fear—it is working only for the Treasury. I do not believe that is what this Labour Government are about. First, on students, I was the first in my family lucky enough to go to university. I started in 2000 when fees were—wait for it—£1,025. My annual loan was about £3,500. We looked enviously on the generation before us, who did not pay fees and who received a grant to go to university. This generation is looking enviously on my generation, which is worrying. I went on to spend 20 years as university lecturer, so I saw every subsequent wave of student finance agreements. The Treasury Committee has concluded that we were essentially mis-selling some of the previous loan agreements on terms that no commercial lender would ever be allowed to offer.