Labour set to ditch pledge for free university tuition, Starmer says

Labour is set to abandon its promise to scrap university tuition fees in England if it wins power, its leader has said.

Sir Keir Starmer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the party was "likely to move on from that commitment", blaming the economic backdrop.

The Labour leader pledged to support getting rid of fees in his 2020 leadership campaign.

But he now said the party was looking at alternative options for funding.

He added that the current fees system, of £9,250 a year, was "unfair" and "doesn't work for students, and doesn't work for universities".

The Labour leader first indicated the policy would be scrapped in a BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg earlier this year. According to the Times, he will confirm the reversal at a speech later this month.

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Asked about the report, Sir Keir said: "We are likely to move on from that commitment, because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation."

He added there were "other ways of approaching this", adding that his party could not "ignore the current economic situation" ahead of the next election.

University tuition fees were introduced by Labour under Tony Blair, before being tripled under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, triggering mass protests among students.

Under former leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour promised to abolish them, alongside reintroducing maintenance grants for poorer students, in its 2017 and 2019 general election manifestoes.

In 2019, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, a think thank, estimated the policies would cost the public purse just over £6bn per university year-group.

Leadership promises

Labour's leader before Mr Corbyn, Ed Miliband, had proposed cutting fees to £6,000 a year.

In Wales, tuition fees are capped at £9,000, while in Northern Ireland, home students pay a maximum of £4,630 but those from other UK nations can be charged up to £9,250.

In Scotland, Scottish students are eligible for free tuition, while those from elsewhere in the UK can pay up to £9,250.

During his campaign to replace Mr Corbyn as leader in 2020, Sir Keir promised to abolish fees as part of his 10 leadership pledges, under the heading of "social justice".

In his three years as leader, he has also abandoned leadership pledges to nationalise energy and water companies, increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, and "defend free movement as we leave the EU".

On the Today programme, he said the UK now found itself in a "different situation," including by having left the EU and now having the "highest tax burden" since the World War II.

He added he had made a "political choice" to abandon the pledge on energy companies, after a review by his team last year found it would "cost a lot" but wouldn't reduce bills for households.

Momentum, the left-wing group set up to campaign for Mr Corbyn's leadership, said Sir Keir's move away from free university tuition was a "betrayal of millions of young people".

It added that it would also "fly in the face of party democracy," with Labour's student wing voting two months ago to campaign to scrap fees.

The Conservative government is in favour of maintaining tuition fees. In January, it said fees would be frozen at £9,250 for the next two years.

The Liberal Democrats want to bring back maintenance grants, which were abandoned in 2016, and set up a review of how higher education is financed.

The Green Party, which favours scrapping fees, criticised Sir Keir's move, with co-leader Adrian Ramsay saying students would pay a "heavy price" as a result of "the latest U-turn from Keir Starmer's Labour".