Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed Labour is planning to abandon its promise to scrap tuition fees – a key pledge of his bid when he ran for the party leadership in 2020.
He had previously hinted he planned to row back on the commitment – and on Tuesday pointed to the “different financial situation” as the reason behind the planned policy shift.
Speaking to the BBC, Sir Keir said: “We are likely to move on from that commitment because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation.”
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He added: “We are looking at options for how we fund these fees. The current system is unfair, it doesn’t really work for students, doesn’t work for universities.”
Labour will “set out a fairer solution” in the near future, he said.
Sir Keir said he did not “want that to be read as us accepting for a moment that the current system is fair or that it is working”.
He did not say what plan or policies would replace the current stance, but added: “You and others would be quizzing me hard if I just simply said I’m going to ignore the current economic situation and just press on with something, notwithstanding the cost.”
Tuition fees are currently £9,250 per year, with the current system introduced under the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government.
Supporting the abolition of tuition fees was one of Sir Keir’s 10 pledges in his campaign to replace former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
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Sir Keir and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been working to show that Labour is fiscally responsible, and not make large spending commitments.
The cost of scrapping tuition fees has been estimated to be just shy of £10bn annually.
Speaking in January, Sir Keir indicated the difficulty Labour would have in finding such a sum.
He said: “University tuition fees are not working well, they burden young people going forward.
“Obviously we have got a number of propositions in relation to those fees that we will put forward as we go into the election.
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“But I have to be honest about it, the damage that has been done to our economy means that we are going to have to, and we know we will, cost everything as we go into that election and we will do that with discipline as we have done it so far.
“I am not going to spell out our manifesto in advance… but I can say that every commitment we make will be absolutely fully funded. That is a cast-iron guarantee as we go into that election.”
Mr Corbyn, who has since lost the Labour Party whip over his response to an inquiry into antisemitism and now sits as an independent MP, tweeted his support for scrapping tuition fees this morning.
