Brazier: tuition pledge swayed vote

Former Canterbury MP Sir Julian Brazier has hit out at an admission by Labour that its commitment to write-off historic student debts is only an ambition.

Ahead of the election campaign, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pledged to clear the slate of those saddled with huge loans, as well as scrapping tuition fees.

But shadow treasury spokesman, John Mcdonnell, said on Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show on BBC 1 that writing off old debts is not a cast-iron party commitment.

“Well, we’ll look at what we can do,” he said.

“It’s a real ambition we’ve got. What Jeremy said is we recognise young people are coming out of university now with debts of £50,000.

“They cannot even think about buying a house or getting on the property ladder. So we’ve got to tackle that.

“But the issue is the system’s got to be tackled anyway because it’s falling apart.”

Pressed on whether students’ historic debts would be written off, he replied: “What we said in our manifesto, we’ll scrap tuition fees, we’ll scrap tuition fees.

“If we can help them deal with the debt we certainly will do.”

Sir Julian – who lost June’s election to Labour’s Rosie Duffield – says students were sold a tall story that had swung the vote against him.

“It is just another example of the false prospectus that persuaded people into voting Labour,” he said.

“I would not use the word ‘duped’, but an offer was put out there in a message that students responded to.

“I am concerned about the level of debt that students are accruing but I would not myself scrap loans.”