England’s higher education funding system is “clearly broken” and “needs replacing”, Labour’s shadow education secretary has said at the party’s conference.
Bridget Phillipson told a conference fringe event in Liverpool that the Conservative government would also come to realise “pretty soon” that the status quo cannot last.
At the 2019 general election under then leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour pledged it would scrap tuition fees – frozen at a cap of £9,250, leading to declining funding for universities – and fund higher education through direct public funding.
There have been suggestions that Labour may seek to move away from that policy, but still scrap fees by introducing a graduate tax.
