Confusion reigns as Labour backtracks on student loans

LABOUR retracted its pledge to abolish student debt yesterday as Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, said there had been “no plans” to write off existing loans and her party had “never promised to do so”.

Speaking during at an emergency debate on tuition fees, Ms Rayner appeared to contradict Jeremy Corbyn and the party leadership, which promised to “deal with” the “excessive burden” of tuition fees during the election.

It comes less than a week after John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, said that eradicating historic student debt remained a “real ambition” for Labour.

Yesterday Ms Rayner denied the pledges had ever been made, in comments that will likely anger thousands of university students who voted for her party on June 8. It came as the Prime Minister, Theresa May, demanded that Mr Corbyn apologise for falsely stating that fewer disadvantaged 18-year-olds were applying for university, adding that Labour had showed it could not be trusted on student fees.

“I think it’s very important as people are thinking about going to university that they are not misled in any way,” she told MPS. “But I think actually the Labour Party should go further – at the election, the leader of the opposition vowed to deal with student debt. Labour were going to abolish student debt. Now they say it wasn’t a promise at all.”

Later, Ms Rayner was asked if abolishing student debt remained a Labour policy. “I don’t know how many times I have to explain this to members opposite before they finally understand. I’ve said once, and I will say it again, we have no plans to write off existing student debt and we never promised to do so.”