More than 120 politicians have urged the UK’s new chancellor to conduct an “urgent review” of student loan repayments.
Shadow education secretary Laura Trott has joined forces with her Liberal Democrat equivalent, Munira Wilson, and Labour MPs Sadik Al-Hassan and Jas Athwal to express “growing concern” about the system’s “unsustainable burden on the next generation of workers”.
Their intervention, addressed to the recently appointed chancellor John Healey, comes after a report from the House of Commons’ Treasury Select Committee described the English student loan system as “unfair” and called for a three-year freeze to the repayment threshold imposed in last year’s autumn budget to be reversed.
The committee also accused the government of mis-selling the loans, after its inquiry into the regime received hundreds of responses from angry graduates. Criticism has focused mainly on the impact of so-called Plan 2 loans – those taken out between 2012 and 2023 – which critics have described as a de facto tax on graduates.
New education secretary Lucy Powell last week said she would “look into” the issue, although she emphasised she could not promise change.
