‘Students haven’t eaten in three days’: LUSU President says live on BBC Question Time

‘The government doesn’t prioritize students and it hasn’t in the last decade’

9 months ago

Jess Cowie | News

During the filming of BBC Question Time last night, Lancaster University Students’ Union President Cerys Evans raised questions about how students were faring in the current economy.

BBC Question Time was filmed live from the LICA building on the Lancaster University campus at 7pm last night, and broadcast at 10.40pm.

The panellists included Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero Graham Stuart MP; Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell MP; Drew Hendry MP, who speaks for the Scottish National Party on the economy; industrialist Juergen Maier; and columnist Jill Kirby.

Cerys said: “You talk about the economy and we are obviously feeling it incredibly much right now. But the future of the nation is really on our young people, I’m the President of the Student’s Union here in Lancaster, and I have students coming in telling me they can’t study because they haven’t eaten in three days.”

via BBC

Fiona Bruce questioned this, shocked, to which Cerys explained that the free weekly supper club on campus, which has been running every Thursday night in the Students’ Union building for the last year, can sometimes have up to 180 students utilising it.

She said, “Fiona I have hundreds of stories. We have a food bank on campus, tonight we have supper club where we give out free meals, we have at least a hundred, 150, 180, students every Thursday who are desperate for what is possibly the only hot meal they’ll have that week.

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“We have a food bank that we struggle to fund, we can only afford a certain amount of food portions on campus. We have a food bank that we struggle to fund, we can only afford a certain amount of food portions on campus”

The SU President went on to say that the government are thinking about students, but that they are the future of the job force: “And this is because students are caught in a crossfire. Universities don’t have a funding model that works. […] Students are the future of the economy.Cerys ended by explaining that the amount of loans that students pay back should not increase with inflation. She said, “If we can’t eat, we can’t study. If we can’t afford our rent, we can’t live here. We need a working maintenance loan model that doesn’t increase in line with inflation. The government doesn’t prioritize students and it hasn’t in the last decade.”The audience responded to Cerys’ statement with applause, before moving on to a question from another audience member.

This comes directly off the back of Cerys, on behalf of LUSU, negotiating a rent freeze for some shared campus accommodation for the next year. This marks the first time since 2015 that a LUSU officer has been able to successfully negotiate with the university on the issue of student accommodation prices.