Labour say they’ll scrap tuition fees if they’re elected

A leaked video has emerged revealing Labour's plans to scrap university tuition fees "once and for all" if they're elected in the general election on 8th June.
A video of Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell passionately pledging to scrap tuition fees has just been leaked, suggesting this could make its way into the Labour Party manifesto.

The video shows McDonnell speaking to crowds at Trafalgar Square about Labour’s plans to make the country “radically fairer, radically more equal” by introducing a 'National Education Service' of sorts.

He said that the Labour party will aim to create a system much like the NHS but for schools, which would involve providing free childcare, free training at schools, ending school cuts and scrapping university fees.

On education, he said:

It’s not a commodity to be bought and sold. So we want to introduce – just as the Atlee government with Nye Bevan introduced the National Health Service – we want to introduce a national education service.

And that means ending the cuts in the schools at primary and secondary level. It means free childcare. It means free school training when you need it throughout life.

And yes it means scrapping tuition fees once and for all so we don’t burden our kids with debt for the future.

Will Labour really scrap fees?

When directly questioned about whether or not scrapping fees at English universities would be in their manifesto, Labour have said they don’t want to give too much away just yet.

Shadow Education Secretary, Angela Raynor told the BBC Radio 4 to “watch this space” on the matter as she didn't “want to give too much of the manifesto away”, but Jeremy Corbyn has hinted that the fee system needs to be reassessed and claimed previously to have “some stuff in my pocket” with regards to university fees.

Scrapping fees would be a bold but not totally unexpected move from Labour, as recent figures suggest as much as 55% of students say they plan to vote for them in the upcoming general election.

However, just last week the Green Party also said they’d scrap tuition fees if they’re elected, so this could be a seen as a move to secure the student vote.

Our Student Finance Expert, Jake has said:

Despite not knowing the full details yet, we would welcome any policy that is looking to scrap tuition fees.

We've got to a stage now that we're not just hugely against the rises in fees, but also the tuition fee system altogether – and it's time something was done about it.

And here's the video....

John McDonnell pledged that a Labour government would scrap tuition fees once and for all during a speech in Mansfield #ge17 pic.twitter.com/Loa6x8gyHd

— i newspaper (@theipaper) May 10, 2017