ALTON College Students’ Union has hosted a topical question-and-answer session with East Hampshire MP?Damian Hinds.

Leading the debate as part of the talks@altoncollege initiative were Fawziyyah Hamid, the first female president of the Students’ Union and former Mill Chase School pupil, vice-president Chris Jordan and marketing officer Rory Page, both previously of Robert May’s School in Odiham, and the Treloar representative Samuel Cornelius-Light.

The session, called ‘The Budget, The Economy and Economics’, took place in the Wessex Arts Theatre in front of an audience of economics, government and politics, law and business studies students eager to hear their MP’s thoughts on Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget and to question him about government policies, tax and the economy.

Mr Hinds started by explaining to students that they “…are the cream of the crop in academia in East Hampshire”.

And the MP went on to say: “You are lucky to be growing up in such a good area with lots of opportunities.”

Before taking questions, the MP talked about his experience of studying economics at A-Level and undergraduate level, reminding students about the principal of “scarcity, choice and opportunity” and stating that “only from looking at what happened in the past can we shape the economic future”.

Answering questions from students, Mr Hinds covered topics varying from the EU referendum and the impact of the recent Budget on education to whether or not university tuition fees are good value for money, the quality of care provided by the NHS and how it can be improved, corporation tax, the voting system, why he voted against lowering the legal voting age, and how important citizens’ happiness is.

There was lively debate from the floor with one student asking for his thoughts on changing the House of Lords, to which Mr Hinds replied: “I am a Conservative, the intrinsic meaning of conservative means we don’t like change!”

In addition to the question-and-answer session, Mr Hinds met two students as part of National Apprenticeship Week who are currently studying for foundation degrees in engineering at Alton College, awarded by the University of Portsmouth, alongside their apprenticeships.

Matt Hall is working at Clarcor Industrial Air, providing industrial filtration solutions, and Olivia Castro, previously at Bohunt School in Liphook, has progressed from level two engineering through level three and is now onto the foundation degree alongside her apprenticeship at Alton Electrical Services Ltd and Out and About Mobility.