Daily Mail

£100bn plan to cancel student debt? It’s just an ambition, admits Labour

- By Claire Ellicott Political Correspond­ent

LABOUR has backtracke­d on its promise to clear £100billion of student debt.

In what the Conservati­ves described as a U-turn, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell appeared to downgrade the pledge to ‘a real ambition’ in an interview yesterday.

The party’s manifesto commits it to scrapping future tuition fees, a pledge Mr McDonnell reiterated yesterday. But it has also said it will help with historical debt.

In an interview before the election, party leader Jeremy Corbyn promised to deal with the issue of former students with ‘massive’ amounts to pay off. Yesterday, Mr McDonnell admitted on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show that the task would cost ‘about’ £100billion, acknowledg­ing that this was ‘a lot of money’.

But he denied backtracki­ng on Mr Corbyn’s pledge, saying the leader had said he would ‘try and tackle’ the issue, rather than promised to.

Asked if Labour would try to pay off the £100billion debt, Mr McDonnell replied: ‘We’ll look at what we can do, it’s a real ambition that we’ve got.’ Asked again, he replied: ‘We’re going to try to. It’s a real ambition of ours. I don’t want to promise something we can’t deliver.’

Challenged by Mr Marr that Labour had promised to help reduce student debt, he replied: ‘No, it wasn’t a promise. What Jeremy said is we’re going to try and tackle this issue. One of the reasons we’ve got to tackle it is because the system itself is collapsing.’

Denying that the pledge had been downgraded to a ‘vague aspiration’, he added: ‘If we can help and deal with the debt, we certainly will do.’

Education Secretary Justine Greening responded saying: ‘Jeremy Corbyn and Labour have not been honest with young people. During the election campaign Corbyn promised students he would wipe out tuition fee loans, at a cost of £100billion.

‘Now his chief lieutenant­s have U-turned on this commitment and young people will see it as a betrayal.’

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