Labour may HIKE college tuition charges

University tuition fees could be raised under a Labour government, despite the party previously pledging to scrap them altogether.

Shadow education spokesman Bridget Phillipson acknowledged that raising fees from their current level of £9,250 a year was ‘really unpalatable’ but refused to rule out hikes.

Sir Keir Starmer yesterday confirmed his previous vow to axe university tuition fees had been dropped.

The pledge was one of ten made during his campaign for the Labour leadership in 2020, most of which have either been abandoned or watered down.

The Labour leader said it was a promise that he had ‘believed in’ at the time, but said the ‘huge damage to the economy’ caused by the Government had made it impossible to deliver.

Sir Keir Starmer (pictured, in Glasgow on Friday) yesterday confirmed his previous vow to axe university tuition fees had been dropped

Shadow education spokesman Bridget Phillipson (pictured, in Purfleet on May 16) acknowledged that raising fees from their current level of £9,250 a year was ‘really unpalatable’ but refused to rule out hikes

‘We will only make commitments we know we can fulfil,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Sir Keir said he still wanted to reform the tuition fee system to make it ‘fairer’, but gave no details as to how this might work.

On the BBC’s Question Time show, Ms Phillipson hinted that Labour could even raise tuition fees to help prop up ailing universities. Introduced by Labour prime minister Tony Blair in 1998, the fees have been frozen at their current level since 2017.

Asked directly if she would remove the current cap, she replied: ‘That is a really, really unpalatable choice. I do not want to have to do that. I absolutely don’t because when I speak to students across the country, what they tell me is that they can’t manage the cost of living.’

But pressed again on whether she would rule it out, she said: ‘We need to look at all of the options around that.’

She said universities were facing ‘enormous challenges’ and that the solution was ‘not straightforward’, adding: ‘We’ve ended up in a situation where because tuition fees have been frozen over an extended period of time, that means universities are increasingly struggling to cover the cost of tuition.’

The pledge was one of ten made during his campaign for the Labour leadership in 2020, most of which have either been abandoned or watered down (pictured: Houses of Parliament)

On the BBC’s Question Time show, Ms Phillipson hinted that Labour could even raise tuition fees to help prop up ailing universities (Stock Photo)

Ms Phillipson said Labour was determined to reform the overall system to make it ‘more progressive’. She suggested graduate repayments of student loans could be eased. She said recent changes had left the system ‘even more regressive than it was’, adding: ‘A nurse ends up paying more and a person working on a big salary in the City pays less.

‘We can deliver a more progressive system without any more spending or borrowing.’ Tory Party chairman Richard Holden said Labour’s U-turn on tuition fees showed it could not be trusted to run the country.

He added: ‘Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t just broken his leadership campaign promise to scrap tuition fees, he’s now smashing it up with a sledgehammer.’