Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Universities, Science and Skills, responding to a Public Accounts Committee report on student loan repayments, said:

“The Public Accounts Committee has today exposed an astonishing £80 billion black hole in the student finance budget. It is now crystal clear that the system ministers have put in place is unsustainable and is going bust.

“Across our universities, vice-chancellors and students alike are rightly concerned that the government’s student finance system is bust and unfit for the future. So that we can to earn our way out of the cost-of-living crisis with more better-paid, high-skilled jobs we need more opportunities for young people to develop their skills, but to pay for their failure the Government is hitting funding for increased access.

“But it’s now clear universities are sitting on flimsy foundations. We now need urgent answers from the Government for how they’re going to fix this £80 billion pound mess which our country cannot afford. Ministers have serious questions to answer.”