A SOUTHAMPTON MP says almost 10,000 students in the city will miss out due to cuts to maintenance grants.

Alan Whitehead has accused Prime Minister David Cameron of "having something against young people" after the announcement that student maintenance grants will be axed.

But Mr Cameron, speaking in a feisty House of Commons debate with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday, said that the move was "uncapping aspiration" and would "put more money in the hand of students".

The move will see student maintenance grants, which are worth up to £3,387 to university students from poorer families, replaced with loans.

Labour have criticised the Government for carrying out the change without a vote in the House of Commons.

The party had tried to block the move on Tuesday (Jan 19) but the move failed.

Labour Southampton Test MP Dr Whitehead says £13m is being paid out in grants to 4,735 University of Southampton students, and £15.6m to young people studying at Southampton Solent University in 2015/16.

Grants totalling £229,606 are also being paid to 71 students at Southampton City College.

Putting a question to Mr Cameron in the House of Commons in Prime Minister's Questions, Dr Whitehead said: "Young people in my constituency over the past few months have seen themselves frozen out the living wage, and housing benefit, facing closure or downgrading of the further education and sixth form colleges many of them rely on to gain qualifications and now the ending of student maintenance grants if they want to go on to higher education.

"What is it the Prime Minister has got against young people trying to get on in life?"

During the debate Mr Corbyn asked Mr Cameron ask why a student called Liam, who is training to be a maths teacher, will finish his course with debts in excess of £50,000, roughly twice his annual income.

The Prime Minister replied: "What I would say to Liam is he is now in a country with a university system with more people going to university than ever before and more people from low-income backgrounds going to university than ever before.

"In addition, what I would say to Liam, and I wish him well, is that he will not pay back a penny of his loan until he's earning £21,000, he will not start paying back in full until he's earning £35,000.

"Our policy is actually going to put more money in the hands of students like Liam, which is why we're doing it.

"By contrast the Labour policy, which is to scrap the loans and scrap the fees which would cost £10 billion, would mean going back to a situation where people went out, worked hard, pay their taxes for an elite to go to university.

"We're uncapping aspiration, you want to put a cap on it."