THIS is the moment Sir Keir Starmer promised to axe university tuition fees in an unearthed clip.
Tuition fees for domestic undergraduate students in England will rise to £9,535 per year after eight years of being frozen at a maximum of £9,250.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told MPs on Monday that the fee rise had “not been an easy decision”.
But she said it was necessary to “secure the future of higher education” amid financial challenges.
And now old footage has emerged of Sir Keir saying he would scrap university tuition fees.
He was asked by Andrew Neil: “What about university tuition fees then? Will you remain committed to scrapping them?”
Sir Keir replied: “They’re all pledges Andrew. So the answer to these questions is yes.”
Neil reiterated: “So university tuition fees being scrapped will be in a Starmer manifesto?”
The Labour leader said: “Yes. That’s why it is a pledge.”
Ms Phillipson announced that maintenance loans would also rise in line with inflation in the 2025/26 academic year to help students facing cost pressures.
The tuition fee and maintenance loan rates will apply to new students and those who are continuing their studies from 2025/26.
The previous government raised the cap on university tuition fees in England to £9,000 per year in 2012.
However it has been frozen at £9,250 for domestic undergraduate students since 2017.
The 3.1 per cent rise to tuition fees and maintenance loans is just for the 2025/26 academic year.
The DfE has said longer-term funding plans for the higher education sector will be set out in due course.
Announcing the rise, Ms Phillipson told MPs: “We will fix the foundations.
“We will secure the future of higher education so that students can benefit from a world-class education for generations to come.”
She added: “It is no use keeping tuition fees down for future students if the universities are not there for them to attend, nor if students can’t afford to support themselves while they study.”
By JACK ELSOM, Chief Political Correspondent
RAISING tuition fees by around £300 a year may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things.
But for years the issue has been a politically-loaded timebomb that successive governments have dodged.
It is especially awkward for Sir Keir Starmer, who ran his Labour leadership campaign on a ticket to axe the £9,250 student payments altogether.
Four years later and now he’s ushering in the first increase since 2017.
He need not be reminded how a similar u-turn ended for Nick Clegg. Remember him?
Ministers believe they were left with no choice: many universities have been warning they are teetering on bankruptcy.
And letting them charge more in tuition is surely better than using taxpayer cash to bail them out at a later stage.
But it won’t stop many students feeling they are getting a duff deal compared to previous generations. It is less than 30 years since £1,000 fees were first introduced in 1998.
Critics also want universities to look at themselves: many are promoting “Mickey Mouse degrees” with dire job prospects.
And despite claiming to be broke, more than 10,000 university fat cats raked in six-figure pay packets last year.
Time will tell how this increase is received.
