Starmer accused of breaking promise after university tuition fees rise announced
Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of breaking his promise on university tuition fees after the Government announced that it would raise them for the first time in eight years.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, revealed on Monday that tuition fees in England would rise in line with inflation from September 2025.
It will mean the annual price of a degree will increase from the current £9,250 to £9,535 from next year.
The move follows growing concerns that many universities are facing financial crisis, with 40 per cent of English universities expecting to slump into a deficit this year.
The Conservatives accused Sir Keir of rowing back on pledges after he had promised to scrap tuition fees altogether in 2020.
As recently as July, Ms Phillipson also ruled out tuition fee rises, saying after the election that Labour had “no plans” to increase them.
Laura Trott, who was appointed as the new shadow education secretary on Monday, accused ministers of ripping up promises and “pushing up the cost for students into an unreformed system at short notice”.
“Yet again, there was no sign of this in the Labour manifesto,” she told the Commons. “Indeed, the Prime Minister made scrapping university tuition fees a centrepiece of his leadership campaign back in just 2020. Perhaps we should start putting sell-by dates on statements the Prime Minister makes.”
She said that despite promises from Labour last year that graduates would “pay less under a Labour government”, they would actually pay more, adding: “More broken promises.”
The changes are expected to affect all students in England from the next academic year, including those already enrolled at university.
The Government refused to rule out further rises in subsequent years, meaning tuition fees could rise to as much as £10,500 by the end of the Parliament. They have remained frozen since 2017, when they received a £250 uplift – the first since 2012.
Ms Phillipson said pushing up fees was necessary to “restore stability to higher education” as universities face a looming financial crisis.
Ms Trott also warned that prospective students would have had little time to prepare for the fee rise, telling MPs the decision would leave them “feeling betrayed”.
She added: “They will have fairly expected, based on all the statements, that the last thing a Labour government would do in office is put up tuition fees.”
Sir Keir inherited Labour’s promise to abolish tuition fees, which was in the party’s 2017 and 2019 manifestos under Jeremy Corbyn. He stuck with the pledge while standing for the Labour leadership, with his promise to eradicate tuition fees one of his 10 key promises.
He ditched the policy while in opposition last year, announcing that Labour would “move on from that commitment because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation”.
Sir Keir said Labour would instead look at “options for how we fund these fees”, with the Government now understood to be considering a root and branch overhaul of the current funding model.
Labour’s most recent manifesto did not spell out the party’s position on tuition fees, but acknowledged that “higher education is in crisis”.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, demanded a “leak inquiry” after The Telegraph revealed the plans in full before Ms Phillipson’s announcement on Monday.
Ms Phillipson said it was with “deep regret” that it had pre-empted her statement in the Commons. Announcing the fee rise, the Education Secretary said: “It is not a decision that I want to take, but I am determined to secure the long-term financial sustainability of our world-leading universities.
“Increasing the fee cap has not been an easy decision, but I want to be crystal clear that this will not cost graduates more each month as they start to repay their loans.”
University leavers are unlikely to see a major material difference in the amount of student debt they owe, as graduates pay back a fixed rate when they earn above a certain threshold.
The Education Secretary also announced that maintenance loans will rise in line with inflation, handing students an extra £414 each year to help with university living costs.
Ministers have so far defied calls to reinstate maintenance grants, a form of means-tested support scrapped by David Cameron in 2016.
The Telegraph understands Labour was discouraged by the huge cost to the Treasury that restoring the support mechanism would have entailed. Modelling previously studied by Labour suggested reinstating the grants at a boosted £4,009 could cost up to £2.3 billion a year.
The Sutton Trust, an education charity, warned that raising tuition fees without reinstating the grants would “hurt students from the poorest households the most”.
Carl Cullinane, the charity’s director of research and policy, said: “If the Government is serious about breaking down barriers to opportunity, it should be taking steps to ensure students from the poorest backgrounds can meet their basic needs without graduating with excessive debt.”
‘It is the right thing to do’
University chiefs welcomed the tuition fee rise on Monday, but it is expected to be followed by calls for further support as the sector faces widespread funding challenges.
Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of Universities UK, said: “Today’s decision cannot have been easy for the Government, but it is the right thing to do. Thriving universities are essential to a thriving UK, delivering stronger growth, better public services and improving individual life chances.
“A decade-long freeze in England has seen inflation erode the real value of student fees and maintenance loans by around a third, which is completely unsustainable for both students and universities. Keeping pace with inflation stops the value of fees going down year after year.”
Prof Chris Day, chairman of the Russell Group of universities, said: “Today’s announcement is a welcome sign that the Government is engaging seriously with the financial difficulties facing universities and students.”
Alongside the freeze in tuition fees over the past few years, university finances have suffered from a dramatic drop in lucrative international students following a Tory crackdown on dependant visas.
Foreign students, who typically pay triple or even quadruple what domestic students do, had been largely propping up the sector. The sudden fall in numbers has removed a crucial lifeline for universities and amplified calls for immediate action from the Government.