It’s the hope that kills you, Lucy

You know the sort of thing. A bunch of items are in a pile to deal with, and you have to sort them on the basis of urgency and importance.

And then you realise that regardless of how urgent or important things are, if you’re broke you can’t fix half of them anyway.

Enter stage left our new Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell.

I’m old enough to remember when fixing student loans were at “the top” of her in-tray:

I want to make sure that we look at this so that it's fair for students – it's a real cost of living issue for young people because there's about a 10-year time frame of people on Plan 2. So they're paying high repayments and never ever paying off the capital of their student loan.

That was in Powell’s first week on the job. We might assume that as part of her induction, she then had to sit down with some officials from the Treasury to get a briefing on student loans. We might also assume that because of what she then said a month later:

Student loan repayments,, there are some inherent unfairnesses in that… the government have already taken some steps to ameliorate that – capping the interest rates this year at six per cent.

The threshold is obviously the big challenge in terms of those monthly repayments for people and I do recognize that, but as I say, if I could magic all these things away and put them right tomorrow without any cost to anyone, I would do it.

But we obviously have to show where the finances, where the money is coming from for any policy changes that we make. So, they are things that I have to work through across government and with the Treasury as well.

I think I’d chalk that up as not quite at the top, but not quite at the bottom of her in-tray either. And then another month on, her speech to Labour Conference in Liverpool, where she started by building my hopes up:

Today, in the face of difficult economic and global political headwinds, we’re determined to fix the big challenges politics has ducked for too long. We look forward, with optimism and hope. Our heads held high, our shoulders back. Our values guiding us every step of the way.

Alas, she then said this about student loans.

I know, I know, that would have worked better if it wasn’t typed.

We did get the disadvantage gap in school attainment, a widening regional gap, SEND provision, persistent absence from school, NEETS, PISA findings on pupils not feeling school is worthwhile or that they belong, Ofsted inspections, parity between technical and academic qualifications, vocational GCSEs, T Levels, V Levels, post-16 apprenticeships, practical assessment in practical subjects, oracy in schools, work experience, preparing pupils for AI, school accountability measures, enrichment in schools, the curriculum and assessment review, SEND reform, early years provision, 30 hours of free childcare from nine months, free breakfast clubs, profiteering in children's social care, reversing FE's decline, the school workforce, the School Support Staff Negotiating Body and childhood in a technological age.

And one line on HE:

We’ll make sure that young people today see the value in going to university. The future requires more not less highly qualified young people.

I had been thinking that the moment has probably arrived in the Parliament when the government can’t any longer get away with blaming the last lot for problems it has recognised.

I guess the alternative is to just pop the problem to the bottom of the pile instead.

In many ways, I lead the Department of Hope.

It’s the hope that kills you, Lucy.