Ian Sollom MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I did not cover myself in glory when I responded to his point earlier, and I would like to take another bite of the cherry. The point I was trying to make was that simply basing it on salary value is not the only way to assess value. The right way to do it is through the regulator, the OfS, and to take that as just one element of many. The OfS should drive that. Would the hon. Gentleman make salary value the primary driver for all courses? [ Interruption . ]

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because that is one part of the argument I am making. There is a very important point about that, which is that it could equally be an argument for making the loan system fairer in its repayment terms to reflect that. There is a deeper problem, too. The graduate earnings premium has declined in Britain, but not because we have too many graduates; it is because we have too few skilled jobs. That is a demand-side failure and a Conservative legacy. Our peers in OECD countries have expanded graduate numbers while maintaining the graduate premium, because they built the industries and invested in the regions that generate high-skilled employment. Cutting student numbers accepts our economic underperformance as permanent. It is, as I have said before, a counsel of despair dressed up as policy. Then there are the creative industries: over £100 billion a year to the British economy; one of our most successful global exports; built on a pipeline of arts graduates. The answer is not to stop training the people on whom the whole pipeline depends. Ultimately, the value of an education cannot be read entirely from a graduate’s salary. The capacity for critical thinking, empathy and cultural participation are public goods, hidden in plain sight, that show up nowhere in write-off rates. A party that asks only “What does it pay?” has already decided something important about what it values.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will turn to the threshold and the interest rate—areas on which we do substantially agree with the Conservative motion’s diagnosis, if not its proposed remedy. In the system as it stands, the interest rate matters financially only for those who repay in full, which most graduates do not. That is by design to share the costs between the graduate and the state. It means that the largest benefit of the Conservatives’ proposal would flow to the highest earners—those who repay completely. As analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown, it would be regressive in its distribution, which is why more thought is required on interest structure. On the threshold, the picture is more straightforward. Before the election, the Education Secretary promised that graduates would pay less under Labour, as the shadow Minister said, and, in their first Budget, the Government left the threshold rising. Then, in their second Budget, the Government froze the threshold for three years from 2027. Ministers have cited a £5.9 billion figure as the yield of this change, but we should be clear about what that figure is: it is the discounted present value of extra repayments across nearly 30 years, with the bulk sitting in the 2030s, 2040s and 2050s. The annual cash impact during this Parliament is relatively small, and the change barely moves the needle on the Chancellor’s own fiscal rules. Graduates will bear a real and immediate burden in their payslip for the remainder of their loan for a cash-flow improvement that is modest in this Parliament and does nothing at all for the Chancellor’s balanced Budget rule. Of all the choices in November’s Budget, why did they make this one? I note that the Government’s amendment today welcomes a commitment to making the system fairer, and such commitments should be welcomed. However, graduates are waiting for action. Let me therefore set out what the Liberal Democrats would do. First, we would unfreeze the plan 2 threshold immediately and tie it to earnings, as was originally promised. Secondly, we would restore meaningful maintenance grants. Students from the poorest families can borrow £1,284 less today in real terms than in 2020-21. The £1,000 grant reaches about 10% of students, restricted to specific subjects. I think we can do better on maintenance policy: grants must be available regardless of subject, and the parental income thresholds that have been frozen since 2008 must be urgently uprated. Thirdly, we would establish a royal commission on graduate finance, including plans 2, 3 and 5—plans 3 and 5 have terms that are, in several respects, even harsher. All those plans should be in scope. It should also have independent oversight of key parameters. That is not to delay, but to look seriously at fairer interest structures, total repayment caps and progressive repayment rates, and, critically, to build the cross-party settlement that is the only real protection against the next Government squeezing graduates again. The system has been treated as a fiscal convenience rather than a social contract by the previous Government, and now by this one. Graduates deserve better.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  The history of access to university demonstrates that point well.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  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.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  The point is to allow the market and the regulation of that market to decide. [ Interruption. ] I will make some progress.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Draft Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Sir John. I will speak briefly. The Liberal Democrats will not be supporting this draft instrument. We understand why the Government brought it forward: universities are under severe financial pressure and the sector needs sustainable funding. We absolutely accept that problem, but that does not mean that we accept the solution. Our position continues to be that any changes to fee limits must be part of a wider package of reform. Students deserve to know not just what they will pay but whether repayment terms will be fair, whether the system as a whole will treat them honestly and that the terms will not be changed against them when it is convenient. At the moment, young people can see that those questions do not have satisfactory answers, and that is why we have called for a royal commission on graduate finance to address them properly. Reform of student finance is only half the picture. We are also clear that fee increases should, in return, come with clear expectations on universities about demonstrable financial sustainability, transparent reporting of how money is spent and accountability on student outcomes. None of that conditionality is on offer here. Asking students to pay more while the underlying system remains unreformed, without clear accountability for how the money is used, is not something we can support.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Draft Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  The Minister has made that point in several debates. I would just like to explain that the commitment was to raise thresholds from when the first cohort graduated, which was in 2016. That was indeed why Martin Lewis investigated the issue and considered judicial review in 2016. There was no freezing of thresholds prior to that. They were due to rise from 2016. I am sure the Minister did not mean to misinform us.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T5. With nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training, the growth and skills levy is due to launch in less than a month, but as few as eight courses have been confirmed, with no funding rates, no duration and no assessment detail published. How is anyone—a young person planning their future, a college planning its provision or an employer planning its workforce—supposed to act on a blank page?

• 26 Feb 2026 · Independent Faith Schools: VAT · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing forward this debate. It is well established that the Liberal Democrats oppose taxing education, whether that is independent, faith or non-faith schools. We did not support the Government’s decision to end the VAT exemption for independent schools, nor them treating such schools differently from other independent education providers for VAT purposes. Neither did we support the Government’s policy to remove private schools’ charitable business rates relief of 80%, for those that are charities. Our position applies equally to all independent schools, but I acknowledge that for many parents, choosing a faith school is not primarily a financial calculation; it is an expression of deeply held conviction about how their children should be raised, and about community and belief. The Government should be mindful of how the policy bears on those for whom a faith education is not a luxury but a matter of conscience. It must be the choice of parents to decide where their children are educated. We understand that the choices parents make have many reasons, and it is parents’ right to make such choices without being subject to further taxes. I have heard from several of my constituents on this issue, none of them wealthy but all of them working hard and wanting to do the very best for their children. Some, alongside many others across the country, have struggled to find a local state secondary school place for their child and have been offered one many miles away. That has meant that they have had to resort to private school, while they sit on long waiting lists for places that will never become available, leaving them under considerable financial pressures. Many other parents have been failed by the school their children attended, which has not provided the support that they need. They have been forced to move to the private sector, again at considerable cost. That has not been a choice, but something they feel has been forced on them, because of issues with the school system. Any parent making that choice, however, for whatever reason, should certainly not be penalised with more taxes. It must be noted that parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities often turn to independent schools, because support is not available in local state schools. Independent schools educate more than 100,000 children with SEND. That number tells its own story. In the past year alone, 100 independent schools are reported to have closed their doors and a further 26 are predicted to follow this year. A small number of those were part of the natural churn, but the majority were not. They include primary and secondary schools, sixth-form colleges and special educational needs schools. The Liberal Democrats remain concerned that such ongoing closures will have a knock-on effect in some areas of the country, which will see an increase in pupils applying and entering the state school system. In Kent, for example, nearly 100 state school inquiries were made in just 48 hours, after the independent Bishop Challoner school announced its closure. The state school system is already struggling with large class sizes, declining teacher numbers and increasing numbers of pupils with SEND. The Government cannot expect the state sector to absorb the pressures that these increased numbers will bring. The Liberal Democrats, however, do believe that independent schools benefiting from VAT exemptions should give back to their local communities. Indeed, many already do, through shared facilities, joint programmes and genuine partnerships with neighbouring state schools. We want to see that best practice become universal, with investment proportional to school size and fees, and schools expected to demonstrate their contribution through the inspection process. Faith schools in particular often have a strong tradition of community service that goes well beyond the school gates. We should recognise that and see it built upon. The Government must look seriously at the negative impact of VAT on faith and non-faith independent schools, the impact on the state sector, and the very real financial burden on families who have already paid tax into the system. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to address the concerns expressed today.

• 26 Feb 2026 · Youth Services: Birmingham Perry Bar · Hansard source

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  According to the Office for National Statistics, 3.8 million people report feeling lonely, with young people consistently among the loneliest groups. Is it any wonder when we have seen youth centres shuttered and libraries boarded up, and the very places that bring people together hollowed out? The Liberal Democrats have a plan to change this by creating a new wave of third spaces centred around something simple but incredibly powerful: shared hobbies. We want to bring people with shared interests together, creating places where they can thrive. What is the Minister doing to tackle loneliness through rebuilding community life and shared experiences? Will she seriously consider our proposals for a bold new wave of hobby hubs to help restore the social fabric of our communities?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Student Loan Repayment Plans · Hansard source

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  I am not personally an architect of plan 2, but the former leader of my party did say sorry, and my party was appropriately punished at the 2015 general election. The decline in the graduate earnings premium is, at its root, a story about economic underperformance, and that points towards the solution. Universities are not simply places that people go to acquire qualifications; they are also research engines, regional anchors, training grounds for public services and drivers of the innovation that creates the skilled employment that graduates need. The answer to graduates being squeezed is not fewer graduates; it is more skilled jobs generated by the research, commercialisation and civic investment that universities are well positioned to deliver. We face a choice: managed decline, fewer students, fewer courses, talent lost and regions left behind; or transformation—treating universities like the national assets that they are. Graduates and the country deserve better. I hope that the Minister can signal in his response that the Government are making a start on that.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Student Loan Repayment Plans · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair today, Ms Lewell, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) on securing this debate. As we have heard, there are many graduates in this country who make loan payments every month and yet they see their loan balances grow. They are young professionals whose loan statements bear no resemblance to the deal they thought they were signing up to. At the same time, there are students who cannot afford to eat and university finances are precarious across the sector. The systems feel broken, so this debate really matters, and those listening deserve a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong and a credible path forward. Let me try to give both. When the plan 2 system was designed, graduates were promised something specific: that they would repay only when earning above a certain threshold, that the threshold would rise with earnings, and that whatever remained after 30 years would be written off—a mechanism to share the cost of higher education between the individual and the state. A higher interest rate for higher earners was a deliberate feature—a progressive measure. Those graduates earning the most would contribute more, to make the system sustainable for those who could not. For many graduates at the time, that deal, however imperfect, felt manageable. However, there is a problem: successive Governments have treated those promises as suggestions. In 2016, the threshold was frozen when it was supposed to rise, not because the economy required that, but because it was a convenient way to extract more from graduates without the political difficulty of imposing a tax rise. The threshold jumped significantly in 2022, but it was then frozen again, then raised again. Now the Government have given in to the same temptation, budgeting to freeze it for three more years. What graduates have experienced is not a coherent system operating as originally designed, but a set of rules that keep getting rewritten by whoever needs to balance the books that year. That is a core injustice. To that political failure, though, we must add an economic failure. In the early years of this decade, inflation ran at levels that few foresaw when the system was designed in 2012. RPI, the basis for the interest rate, exceeded 13%. There was a cap on interest rates during that period, which in principle was welcome, but it was implemented too late, and the cap was set too high to make a meaningful difference for most borrowers. Meanwhile, graduates’ starting salaries barely moved in real terms. Interest-linked to a discredited inflation measure running hot, while earnings stood still—that combination has been toxic and the system had no mechanism to correct it. Although plan 2 graduates suffered from the accumulation of damage caused by those political and economic circumstances, the last Government introduced plan 5. Plan 5 graduates face a lower repayment threshold and a 40-year repayment period before write-off—terms that in many respects are harder than those faced by their predecessors. I hope we do not lose sight of the plan 2 or plan 5 cohort in this debate, because any serious reform of the system must address both. Before I move on to what can be done about loan repayments, I want to say something briefly about students who are struggling right now. The abolition of maintenance grants after the coalition ended in 2015 loaded the highest debt on to the students least able to bear it. Those from the poorest backgrounds now graduate with significantly more debt, not from their fees but from the additional maintenance borrowing. The level of support has fallen 10% in real terms from its peak. Students skip meals, work hours that damage their studies, and are unable to participate fully in the education that they are notionally receiving. The Government have reintroduced £1,000 grants for maintenance for certain subjects, but the full reintroduction of meaningful maintenance grants for the most disadvantaged students must be a priority. The most urgent action on repayments requires no review, but a decision: reverse the threshold freeze over the next three years and tie it to earnings, as graduates were originally promised. I hope the Minister can give graduates that commitment today. For the structural reform that the system genuinely needs, we need to go beyond any single parameter. We need to design interest and repayment structures that are genuinely progressive across the income distribution, including by ditching the discredited link to RPI. We must build a system that also works for people studying flexibly and later in life, not just for 18-year-olds on three or four-year degrees. We are seeing more move to modular courses, so the system needs to be able to cater for that. Structural reform is needed, which is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a cross-party royal commission on graduate finance reform. I anticipate that some will see that as a delay, but I do not think it is. We need action on the threshold action now, but the commission needs to address a different, harder question: how do we build a system that future Governments cannot quietly dismantle the moment that fiscal pressure mounts? Every change made retrospectively to the terms has broken a promise to people who made life decisions based on them. Cross-party consensus with independent oversight of key parameters is the only protection against that happening again. I would like to directly address the suggestion made explicitly by the official Opposition that the answer to fiscal pressure in the student finance system is to have drastically fewer students, and to cut courses, close departments and focus support on degrees whose graduates earn enough to repay quickly. That gets the diagnosis backwards. The graduate earnings premium has declined in Britian, not because we have too many graduates but because we have too few skilled jobs. Many of our peers in the OECD have expanded graduate numbers while maintaining or even raising the earnings premium. We should be asking why those countries have generated skilled professional jobs in a way that Britain has failed to do. Cutting student numbers accepts that failure as permanent, but that is a counsel of despair. It also fails on its own terms. Setting aside the inherent value of the creative arts—many have made that point—that sector contributes enormously to the economy and enriches all our lives. Arts and humanities courses are also cheaper to deliver, and help to support expensive, lab-based science, technology, engineering and mathematics provision. Cutting 100,000 arts places would not simply reduce the loan book; it would undermine the financial model of the very STEM courses that the Conservatives claim to prioritise.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  By any measure, this past week has been an extraordinary one in British public life. Within five days, two people have been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office: one a former member of the royal family, and the other a veteran Labour politician who we now understand to be the man who championed the first’s appointment to his public role. This motion is not an attempt to prejudice a police investigation. We are clear that we must let the police do their work. That investigation must proceed on its own terms, free from political interference. Criminal law and parliamentary accountability are not the same thing, and they have never been mutually exclusive. Parliament has its own duty to scrutinise public appointments, to follow public money, and to ensure that the institutions of state are answerable to the people they serve. That duty did not disappear when Thames Valley police opened their case files, so let us ask the question that this House should have been asking for years: how did Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor come to be appointed as Britain’s special representative for international trade and investment in 2001, and what did those responsible for that appointment know? Here is what we do know. The appointment was, by multiple accounts, controversial from the start. Concerns were raised within Government, within the Foreign Office and, reportedly, within the royal family itself, yet he was appointed. For a decade he travelled the globe on the public purse, meeting Heads of State and billionaires, on expenses described by former officials as lavish and poorly scrutinised. He was effectively given a rubber stamp. All the while, his relationship with Epstein deepened—a relationship that the Epstein files now suggest may have been entangled with his official duties in ways that potentially breach both his duty of confidentiality and even the Official Secrets Act. The documents that might answer those questions should by now be in the national archives under the 20-year rule, but they are not. Every available exemption has been deployed to keep them sealed—national security, international relations, and more. Some, we are told, have been locked away until 2065, and most of us in the Chamber will not be here to read them if they are. As the hon. Members for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara) and for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry)—she is no longer in her place—have said, the historian Andrew Lownie has spent years attempting to access those files through the proper channels. When asked what he made of that, he said simply: “Every single reason has been deployed to stop those papers getting out…You have to ask why”. Madam Deputy Speaker, we are asking why. Some may ask why, if Parliament has had the tools to scrutinise this issue through a substantive motion, it is happening only now. That is a fair question. No party in over a decade successfully used the parliamentary mechanisms available to force this issue properly. That is not because the rules prevented it; it is because the cultural gravitational pull of deference was so strong that to too many people the sustained rigorous scrutiny of a public figure who happened to be a member of the royal family felt simply not the done thing. The unwritten convention was as powerful, if not more powerful, than the written rule. That is not a procedural failure; it is a failure of political culture, and it is precisely that culture that the motion challenges today. I came to this place with a background in science, and in any field of systemic inquiry there is an important principle: we cannot correct a failure that we refuse to examine. Institutional failures do not disappear when we look away from them; they compound. The question of how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor came to be appointed, against objections reportedly raised from multiple directions, and how he was then allowed to operate for a decade with expenses rubber-stamped and minimal oversight, is not ancient history. It is the context in which every subsequent failure of public appointment standards must be understood. Beyond this motion the Liberal Democrats are calling for structural reforms that match the scale of what has been revealed so far. We want a genuinely independent ethics adviser who is able to initiate investigations, not to have to wait for permission from the Ministers they are supposed to scrutinise. We want an office of the whistleblower, with real legal protections, so that the civil servant who was overruled when they tried to question an expenses claim has somewhere to go. We want a rigorous, transparent confirmatory process for all significant public appointments, with proper parliamentary involvement from the outset, not as an afterthought, and not after the damage has already been done. We want an end to government by WhatsApp, with all official business on the record, all lobbying published, and no more deals done in the dark. Deference is not respect, silence is not discretion, and secrecy in public life is not safety—it is the condition under which misconduct flourishes. The documents we are asking for should have been in the public domain years ago. This House has the power and responsibility to require their release, and it should do so today.

• 12 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T3. The B1050 between Earith and Willingham in my constituency is one of many peat-affected roads in Cambridgeshire. Such roads cost up to four times more to repair than others, and repairs last just a fraction of the time. The Secretary of State will know that the funding formula for highways maintenance is based on road length and does not take account of geological conditions. These roads are really dangerous to drive on, and my constituents are really frightened. Will she consider creating a special budget for peat-affected roads, or at least adjusting the formula to take account of geological conditions?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and will shortly cite an example of that from my constituency. The key distinction to make is between selection and settlement. Our visa system is the selection mechanism; we judge whether someone has the skills we need, meets the thresholds, and fills a genuine vacancy. Settlement is about whether people can actually plan a future here and commit to staying. Five years of working, paying taxes, learning English and staying out of trouble is earning it. Extending it to 10 or 15 years does not raise standards; it just makes Britain unattractive to exactly the people our visa system should be welcoming. I will give a concrete example. I have a constituent who came in on the high potential individual visa, which is a route explicitly designed to attract the world’s best talent. He is a skilled engineer; he chose the UK based on the clear five-year pathway. He tells me that had a 10-year route been the policy, he would never have come. That is the reality when we are competing for talent. The Government also claim that the changes will improve integration, but uncertainty is the enemy of integration. Someone who knows they can settle after five years will invest fully in their future here; someone facing 10 to 15 years of uncertainty will keep their options open elsewhere. Another constituent who has been in touch is an orthopaedic surgeon, a professional serving our NHS. He has three children in British schools. He tells me that if the rules change, he cannot wait for another six years. He will leave, and our NHS and our country will lose him and his talent. The moral stakes are clearest when I hear from Hongkongers in my constituency. While they may be exempted from the extension to 10 years, the consultation leaves unclear what “earned settlement” actually means for them—higher English requirements, income thresholds, whether any exemption is permanent. That is for people who fled political persecution based on our word to them. When we create uncertainty for people who follow the rules and contribute, it damages trust in British commitments. By all means, use the visa system for selection—we can have many separate debates on that—but settlement terms should enable the people we decided to welcome to commit to staying. The current direction undermines both our economic interests and our reputation for fairness, and I urge the Government to change course.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I am grateful to the petitioners for bringing this important matter to Parliament, and to the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for leading the debate. The Government are right to say that settlement should be earned through contribution—few would dispute that principle. The consultation documents point to a system that contradicts those stated goals. I am sure the Minister will say that no final decisions have been made, but the direction of travel is clear. A 10-year baseline for most routes—15 years for care workers, as many Members have mentioned—with complex reductions based largely on salary, fundamentally misunderstands what settlement is for.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Arctic Security · Hansard source

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  The Foreign Secretary has talked a lot about military co-operation today, less so about economic security co-operation. She will remember that the Prime Minister abolished the National Security Council sub-committee on economic security. I was pleased that the Minister with responsibility for economic security was here for a time, but he is not part of the National Security Council. How are these economic security questions and co-ordination with partners being handled and managed in Government?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Universities: Statutory Duty of Care · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing this important debate. I acknowledge the families who have suffered the devastating loss of their loved one at such a young age. In particular, I recognise Natasha Abrahart’s parents for their campaigning to prevent other families from enduring what they experienced. I am grateful for the time that they spent with me to share Natasha’s story and their concerns about how universities support students in crisis. It is because of families like theirs that we are having this debate today, and we owe it to them to get it right. Although much of this debate has rightly focused on mental health support, universities have a broader duty of care to their students. It encompasses physical safety, appropriate academic adjustments, protection from harassment and ensuring that institutional practices do not place unreasonable pressure on vulnerable students. The Liberal Democrats believe that universities should be held accountable for the support that they provide to their students as part of those duties. We have heard a lot of numbers and statistics about students’ mental health challenges. In the interests of time, I will not dig into those further. From the many meetings that I have had with universities and student organisations, it is clear that many care deeply about those studying with them and want to provide the best support to all who need it, but we also know that demand is rising and not all institutions are meeting what we might expect. The question is how we ensure that support services are available, timely and fit for purpose, and that students know how to access them. Also, how do we ensure that institutional practices, from assessment methods to accommodation standards, properly support student wellbeing? Support can come in a number of forms, catering to different student populations and localities, among other things, but I hope we would all agree that there should be a consistent approach across all universities to ensure that support is available when and where it is needed. That is where the university mental health charter, devised by the charity Student Minds, could have an important role to play. Signing up to the charter is currently voluntary for universities, and just over 100 of the 165 have signed up. All universities are being asked to sign up by the end of this year. That should be encouraged, to ensure a base level of support for all students from the start of their higher education experience. To address universities’ duty-of-care responsibilities, a voluntary aspiration must evolve into a rigorous accountability mechanism. That means not just mental health services, but ensuring that institutional policies and practices properly support student wellbeing. Universities must not only sign up to the charter, but demonstrate that they are adhering to a full strategy, with clear standards, regular independent assessment and consequences for non-compliance; providing details and evidence of direct signposting of services to students; dedicated individuals responsible for ensuring that well-structured welfare checks are carried out; and timely delivery of services when needed. I was going to give a couple of examples from the University of the West of England, as I have been really impressed by its leadership on the issue. It does not have a one-size-fits-all solution, which is food for thought for other institutions and the Minister. However, in the interests of time I will just encourage the Minister to look into that. Importantly, the university’s approach is not just about counselling; it is about co-ordinating work across the institution to ensure that students with mental health conditions receive appropriate academic adjustments where necessary, that assessment practices are flexible when needed, and that support wraps around the whole student experience. As others have said today, it is important to recognise that universities cannot solve this problem alone. We need much stronger partnerships between universities and NHS mental health services. Students should not fall into gaps between university counselling and clinical NHS provision when they most need support. When students move away to university, they often lose the continuity in NHS services that may have supported them at home. The student mental health agreement, which facilitates the sharing of information, with consent, between universities and NHS services, must be implemented consistently across all institutions. Finally, the area that is perhaps hardest to address is the cultural change required among students, families and staff across universities. It is vital that students who are suffering feel comfortable and safe to disclose any issues they may have in order to seek and access the support and services they need. We can only do so by continuing to talk. We owe it to the families of those young people who are no longer with us to ensure that we adopt a system-wide approach to providing the best access to support and services at universities, as well as bringing about much-needed cultural change to prevent further tragedies in the future.

• 8 Jan 2026 · High Street Gambling Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for securing this debate and for all her hard work on this issue. What she has been doing is impressive. Gambling can be a light-hearted pastime that many would describe as fun and harmless. As a Liberal Democrat, I support an individual’s right to choose, but, as we have heard, gambling comes at a very high cost for some people —some of the stories shared by the hon. Member for Brent East were very moving. That is true not just for those who are directly affected by gambling, but for their friends, their families, and all those who have that emotional burden and—in some cases—shared financial burden. I will delve into a few of the statistics—some have already been mentioned, but they are worth emphasising. According to last July’s “Gambling Survey for Great Britain” an estimated 2.5% of adults have struggled with problem gambling, equating to over 1 million people. The proportion of people with severe problem gambling was nine times higher for those using in-person slot machines and six times higher for those using online slots. More than one in 40 people who gambled in the last year experienced severe harm to their life, such as turning to crime to finance gambling, experiencing a relationship breakdown or losing their home, and Public Health England estimates that, tragically, there are more than 400 gambling-related suicides a year. Gambling affects all ages and genders, but the rates are particularly high among men and young people. More than one in 20 of those aged 18 to 34 who had gambled in the last 12 months reported a severe impact on their life. Liberal Democrats have long been calling for gambling reform, and we are pleased that the Government have listened to us in one key area. We campaigned for many years for the remote gaming duty to be doubled, and the Government have done exactly that. That was the right decision, but on the high street—the subject of this debate—much more action is needed. Liberal Democrats support removing the “aim to permit” principle, that statutory presumption under the Gambling Act 2005, giving local authorities the same power to refuse applications for gambling venues as they have for pubs and other licensed premises. That would enable local authorities to introduce cumulative impact policies to prevent clustering and saturation of gambling premises in areas deemed more vulnerable to harm. It is also important that local public health bodies can make statutory representations, and that public health evidence is given full weight in those licensing decisions. Additionally, we believe that more decisive action is needed to combat the harms caused by problem gambling. With that in mind, we have been calling for gambling advertising to be restricted, to tackle the gambling adverts that bombard people through their TVs and radios as well as marketing via social media; for a gaming ombudsman to be established, one with real power to protect consumers and resolve complaints; for affordability checks to be enforced and implemented by mandating financial checks and data sharing to stop gambling beyond means; and for tough action to be taken against black-market gambling. Access to a range of support services is also vital. Anyone worried about their gambling or anyone close to them should be able to seek help easily in their local area, and gambling firms must pay their fair share towards those services. A related concern, and one which is shared by leading support charities, is that the introduction of the statutory levy on gambling firms must not mean gambling support services being disrupted during this year’s transition period. We call on the Government to ensure that interim funding is available, so that vulnerable people do not fall through the cracks during that transition. Although most people who regularly gamble do so without a problem, it is evident that for some, it is a slippery slope that leads to a host of financial, personal and health problems. We have a duty to prevent that from happening in the first place, and to help those who are already struggling. As such, I urge the Government to act as a matter of urgency to tackle the very real and evident harm gambling can cause to families, children, young people and communities across the country.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Ukraine and Wider Operational Update · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State will know that the NATO Secretary-General said in September that we must “prevent spreading” NATO forces “too thinly”. Could he provide some reassurance to the House on the implications of this potential deployment for the Joint Expeditionary Force and our leadership of that in Estonia?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Venezuela · Hansard source

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  At the weekend, Donald Trump invoked the Monroe doctrine. From her statement, the Foreign Secretary seems to accept that in some cases, the UN charter is secondary to great powers’ spheres of influence. What criteria does she use to decide when the charter is trumped by 19th-century thinking? She has talked a lot today about alliances; the great game of alliances in the 19th century ended very, very badly.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Employers across the construction, care and manufacturing sectors have warned that Skills England’s dumbed down reforms mean that apprenticeships will not be recognised by professional bodies. Today’s announcement of 50,000 apprenticeships is meaningless if employers will not recognise those standards, so will the Secretary of State guarantee that reformed apprenticeships will still meet those standards? That is a particular concern in the construction industry—

• 3 Dec 2025 · Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing the debate. The Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor has had something of a tortured history. For nearly two decades, various iterations of the vision have promised transformational change, only to be shelved, rebranded or, as was reported in 2022, flushed down the toilet in mime by a previous Secretary of State, who is fortunately no longer here. As we discuss the growth corridor, I hope that the knowledge and experience of constituencies such as mine and others represented in the debate, which are already living with rapid growth, can inform a better approach this time. This really does matter in my constituency, sitting as we do immediately to the west of Cambridge. St Neots is a genuinely strategic location, at the intersection of the east coast main line that runs north to south, the planned East West Rail connection, the A1 running north and south, and the new A428 running east to west. The new towns taskforce has identified the Tempsford area just to the south for a new settlement of potentially 40,000 homes. That area sits at the confluence of multiple local authority boundaries—different authorities with different, overlapping responsibilities. The complexity I have outlined makes integrated transport planning in particular essential from the outset. Sustainable transport connections between existing towns and villages and new railway stations at Cambourne and Tempsford on East West Rail need to be a key focus from the very beginning of planning. I hope the Minister can commit to that. There is some understandable uneasiness about the Tempsford proposal. There are worries about local schools and GP practices being stretched, and concerns about water scarcity and flooding issues. How healthcare infrastructure grows is a particular concern, and one with which my constituents are well familiar. Northstowe in my constituency is said to be the UK’s largest new town since Milton Keynes, with 10,000 homes by 2040. Its first residents moved in eight years ago, yet there is still no permanent GP surgery. That places enormous strain on surrounding village practices. The pattern has been clear: houses get built, but the health infrastructure lags behind. Will the Minister assure my constituents that he is actively working with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to pump-prime healthcare services for new developments, ensuring that services are built to grow sustainably alongside the new communities they serve? I had much more to say about skills and education—which have already been talked about—and about the environment. The Fens 2100+ programme is grappling with the reality that parts of Cambridgeshire are below sea level and face increasing flood risks. That should be considered. The growth corridor project is a genuine opportunity, but it will be realised only by genuine cross-governmental working. No single Department can deliver what is needed. We need to ensure that communities such as St Neots can actively participate in and benefit from growth, rather than simply absorbing its pressures.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We found out last week that the international student levy will raise £445 million from our universities, but only 1% of that will go to the maintenance grants that Ministers have claimed to justify this damaging tax on our universities. Worse still, the flat fee design hits hardest the universities doing the most to serve students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Can the Secretary of State tell us whether more or fewer disadvantaged students will access university as a result of this policy?