Laura Trott MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 15 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  As ever, my right hon. Friend is entirely correct. The evidence is irrefutable, and the Government need to get on with it.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Since I last stood at this Dispatch Box to argue, again, that we should stop ignoring the evidence and act to ban social media for under-16s, 12 individuals in California have done something remarkable. They have begun to turn the tide against the use of social media by children. On 25 March, a jury in Los Angeles delivered a landmark verdict: they found two social media giants responsible for injuries suffered by a young woman over the course of her childhood. The conclusion was stark. These companies knew that their platforms were addictive. They knew the risks to young people and they chose not to act, and children have paid the price. The jury did not ignore the evidence, and nor should this House. That is not an isolated case. It is the beginning of something much larger. Eight further trials are already scheduled in California alone, and federal cases brought by states and school districts will follow this summer. Behind them stand thousands of claimants waiting to be heard. Here in the United Kingdom, however, we are still watching rather than acting. This ruling should have made the Government stop dragging their feet. It confirms what parents, teachers and health professionals have been saying for years. Aggressive, addictive algorithms are damaging children’s mental health, and, in the worst cases, costing them their lives.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  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.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises that point. I totally agree with him that it is something that needs to be looked into and fixed. As I have mentioned, we know that 10 times as many young people want an apprenticeship at 18 as there are places available. The demand is there, but the places are not. To me, it makes complete sense to move from funding dead-end courses at universities to giving young people the opportunity to do an apprenticeship that will get them into a job, and they will emerge from that apprenticeship with no debt. We want fundamental change to the system so that at 18, young people have a choice between a high-quality university place, an apprenticeship or going into work. That is a Conservative choice. What is Labour’s response to that proposal? Last weekend, the Government announced that they will compensate for some of the mess that they created in the form of youth unemployment when they hiked up employer national insurance contributions, but they are robbing Peter to pay Paul—exactly the sort of economic thinking that we have come to expect. They are punishing employers with a jobs tax, which one of the Cabinet finally admitted this week has caused a huge spike in unemployment, and they are giving back £3,000, but only to those who have been on universal credit for six months. Fiddling with a system that needs fundamental reform and clearing up the mess of the Chancellor’s Budget is almost a full-time job for this Government. The Conservatives are the only party putting forward a serious plan to help young people, whether by abolishing stamp duty for first-time buyers or through our new deal.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Lady thinks the system is broken, I invite her to vote for our motion. Every metric for young people has got worse since this Government came in. It is crystal clear that for young people, as for the rest of the country, Labour is not working.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is nothing progressive about letting a young person take a university degree that has negative returns for them. That is not fair or right, and we should fix it. The problem is not just the loans, but a system that funnels young people into university courses that do not get them jobs and do not allow them to repay their loans. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that 30% of university degrees have negative returns for those who study them. It is not just that they do not help, but that they have negative returns. It is worse for those students to go to university—that is not progressive. Some 75% of the value of loans for creative arts courses is not paid back. Creative arts is an engine of the UK economy, but too many courses just do not deliver jobs in the industry that they purport to serve. It is a mis-selling scandal where brochures promise a glittering career, but the courses deliver nothing but debt and a dead end. That is not right. Of course, creative arts courses that actually lead to jobs should continue, but those who are selling a lie do not have any place being taxpayer funded. The consequences of this broken system are already becoming clear. According to the Centre for Social Justice, more than 700,000 graduates are currently out of work and claiming benefits. That should concern every Member of this House.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to set the interest rate on Plan 2 student loans at a level which ensures that balances will never rise faster than RPI inflation; further calls on the Government to stop the freeze on repayment thresholds; and also calls on the Government to create more apprenticeships for 18-21 year olds, funded by controlling the number of places on university courses where the benefits are significantly outweighed by the cost to graduates and taxpayers. In June 2023, the then shadow Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), proclaimed, “Graduates, you will pay less under Labour”. Well, it turns out that that was not true; under Labour, graduates are paying more. So far, under this Government tuition fees have gone up twice. This is a long way from the abolition of tuition fees offered up by a fresh-faced candidate for the Labour leadership just a few years ago—I wonder what happened to him. It is no wonder that students feel misled by this Government. Not content with hiking tuition fees when they said they would not, this Government also froze the thresholds for repayments, making loans even more expensive for graduates. As with everything this Chancellor touches, she makes it worse. Her choice to freeze the repayment thresholds has left young people paying more and sooner. What did the Chancellor say when challenged about the threshold freeze in January? She said that the student loan system is “fair and reasonable”. To be clear, this was the stance—that the student loan system and the threshold freeze were “fair and reasonable”—of the Labour Government as recently as January. Tell that to the graduate forced to pay an extra £24,000 because of the Chancellor’s changes. The Chancellor is wrong: it is not fair or reasonable.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is spot on. It is not well known that apprenticeship degrees are more oversubscribed than Oxford and Cambridge. These are things that young people want to do, and that is why we are trying to expand them. Instead of celebrating the expansion of low-value degrees, the Government should ask whether it is right to continue pushing young people down a path that leaves them with debt but no clear prospects.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  It seems like the hon. Gentleman was at university only yesterday. If we are asking young people to take on a mountain of debt, it is important for them to know that they will get a job and have prospects afterwards. I do not think that is an unreasonable proposition, and it is one that I will argue for.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is, as ever, absolutely right. Opportunity should be created for young people here, not in other countries, and that is what we want to create.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  I just told you!

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  Exactly. The Chancellor gave it all away when she said that young people are at the back of the queue—that tells us all that we need to know about this Government. The Government amendment is the usual mishmash of nothingness, and I suspect many Labour Members are disappointed. The amendment welcomes “the Government’s commitment to make the system fairer and financially sustainable”, even though the only thing that the Government have done so far, which is the threshold freeze, has made the system less fair and less sustainable for young people. But don’t worry, there is more. Labour Members are today going to welcome a “target”—not any action lines, but a target—even though it is a target that the Government are currently missing, as the share and volume of under-25s starting apprenticeships in the last academic year have fallen. What a mess! We need a different approach. The Conservatives believe that the system needs fundamental change. We believe that students should not be mis-sold degrees that promise the earth and deliver nothing but debt, that the freeze on thresholds is wrong, that students on plan 2 loans should only pay interest at inflation, and that young people deserve a new deal. That is what we are asking the Government to vote for today, so that young people will be put not to the back of the queue but to the front of it.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have a chance today to create a new deal for young people. I hope that some Government Members vote for it.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is missing the fact that Labour has made it worse. Even now, the Chancellor has changed her tune—no surprise given the track record of this Government. She now says that the system is “broken”, but young people are apparently not at the “front of the queue”. I did not see that on the front of the Labour manifesto. We on the Opposition Benches think that young people should be at the front of the queue, because thanks to Labour, Britain’s youth unemployment rate has topped the eurozone for the first time ever. Graduates coming out of university cannot get jobs. Graduates in work are seeing their student debt mounting up.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor said that the system was fair and reasonable—what a joke! The Government do not recognise the scale of the problem, but we do, and we have come up with a plan to fix it. What is their plan? It does not exist.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is quite right: not only did Labour mislead the public, but it then made things worse. Now, Labour Members will not vote to fix it. That is Labour all over. We need a plan to fix the problem, but it is not enough to fiddle with one part of the problem. We need comprehensive change, and that is exactly what we Conservatives have come up with: a new deal for young people. The plan, which could be implemented today, would reverse the threshold freeze, make interest rates for plan 2 loans inflation-only, stop dead-end degrees, and boost apprenticeships so that young people have real choice when they leave school, not a future weighed down by debt.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  No, the plan would massively widen choice. At the moment, the number of young people who want to start apprenticeships is much smaller than the number of apprenticeships available—we need to change that and the system. It is not good enough for the Government to table an amendment to our motion stating that they will make the system fairer and financially sustainable, when they are making it less fair and less financially sustainable. At the moment, the system is punishing aspiration, and that is demoralising for young people. They leave university having done everything that was asked of them. They work hard and get a promotion, and then the interest on their loan goes up. They pay back far more than they ever borrowed. A typical plan 2 graduate needs to earn £66,000 a year just to keep pace with the interest. Young people should not be punished for doing the right thing.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  As ever, the hon. Gentleman raises a very interesting point, and I look forward to his bringing it up with the Chancellor at questions.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  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?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend eloquently sums up why this amendment is so important.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is completely right. We need that age limit, and we need the phone ban in schools. Polling out today shows that 40% of children are shown explicit content during the school day. That is happening right now. This is an emergency. No more guidance; no more consultations—the Government should legislate, do something about it, and vote to ban phones in schools tonight. The Lords amendments on social media received overwhelming cross-party backing in the other place. They were put forward by the noble Lords Nash, Berger, Cass and Benjamin. The amendments have been extensively debated and are backed by a number of expert groups and bereaved parents. In the place of those amendments, we have the farcical situation where the Government are asking the House to support their own amendment, which does not tell us what the Government will do or even when they will do it. No action is required by the provision being put forward this evening.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  With pleasure.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but I will make some progress, otherwise I will get in trouble with Madam Deputy Speaker. We have an emergency, and it is hidden on children’s phones. A quarter of children in primary school have seen porn, and the vast majority access it via social media. Some 70% of teenagers have seen real-life violence online, while only 6% were looking for it. In other words, the social media algorithm deliberately serves it to them. Criminals are using Snapchat and Facebook to groom children. Child sexual abuse imagery crimes are up enormously. Snapchat is flagged in almost half of cases. Meta platforms make up a quarter.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The whole point is whether it is compulsory or not—that is the whole point of uniform, and I was reading directly from the guidance. It makes absolutely no sense; how is a child wearing something that they have been given for free going to increase costs for parents? If the “not invented here” syndrome were not running so rampant in the Department for Education, the change made by Lords amendment 41 would already have been made. The same is true of Lords amendment 44. We all know the horrific case of Sara Sharif, which was used as a rationale for bringing forward many of the positive child protection measures in the Bill. The serious case review published at the end of last year set out multiple failings that led to Sara falling out of the system. That review states that, while well intentioned, this legislation would not have helped Sara, so we have brought forward amendment 44 to fix that. It ensures that consent would need to be sought from the local authority to homeschool any child who has ever had a child protection plan. That would mean that the Bill would have helped Sara, which is the Government’s stated aim, but guess what, Madam Deputy Speaker? The Government are now opposing that amendment. We are diligently doing the work an Opposition should do to improve the legislation, but it is being shrugged off by the Government—not on its merits, but because they do not want to accept anything from this side of the House. It is not good enough.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I profoundly disagree with the hon. Gentleman. At a time of shrinking school places, it is important that it is the good school places that survive, and parents should make that choice, not bureaucrats. The Government’s inability simply to admit that they got it wrong in the Bill, and that there is a better way of achieving the outcome they want, is ever present. Lords amendment 41, which would impose a cost cap on school uniform, is palpably better than having a cap on the number of items. It is the height of insanity to insist that it should be illegal for a school to use the football kit it received for free because that would be outside of the item limit. If anyone is thinking that this cannot actually be Government policy, I suggest that they read the guidance that sits alongside the legislation. It literally says that “All loaned or gifted branded items will be captured within the limit if they are required to be worn”, meaning that they come under the cap. That makes absolutely no sense.