Wiping out student debt is an ambition for Labour rather than a promise, John McDonnell conceded yesterday.
The shadow chancellor appeared to weaken one of Jeremy Corbyn’s most eye-catching appeals to young voters in the election, committing Labour only to “look at the system” of student debt.
Labour pledged in its election manifesto to scrap tuition fees for future university students. In an interview with the NME a week before the election Mr Corbyn also vowed to “deal with” the debts of students who had already taken out student loans, saying that Labour would look at ways to reduce the debt, lengthen the period for paying it off or “some other means of reducing that debt burden”.
He added: “I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that came after. I will deal with it.”
But challenged about the pledge to wipe out the debts of past students yesterday, Mr McDonnell stopped short of matching Mr Corbyn. “The system is imploding,” he told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One. “Half of the student debt, we now know, is not going to be paid back. So the system itself is falling apart. We’ve got to look at the system.”
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Mr McDonnell said that fulfilling the pledge would cost about £100 billion. Asked if it would happen under a Labour government, he said: “We’ll look at what we can do. It’s a real ambition that we’ve got . . . I don’t want to promise something we can’t deliver.”
Justine Greening, the education secretary, accused Labour of dishonesty. “Jeremy Corbyn and Labour have not been honest with young people. During the election campaign Mr Corbyn promised students he would wipe out tuition fee loans, at a cost of £100 billion. Now his chief lieutenants have U-turned on this commitment and young people will see it as a betrayal.”
Mr McDonnell also reiterated the claim he made at Glastonbury festival that the fire at Grenfell Tower was “social murder”. “There’s a long history in this country of the concept of social murder where decisions are made with no regard to the consequences of that, and as a result of that people have suffered. That’s what happened here,” he said. Philip Hammond said that the comments were “disgraceful”, adding: “There is absolutely not a shred of evidence to support that.”
• The government has reneged on a promise to hold a vote on raising tuition fees over fears that Conservative backbenchers might side with Labour. Ministers had bowed to Labour demands for a debate and vote on the removal of the £9,000 cap on university fees, which can now rise in line with inflation, but it was scuppered by Theresa May’s decision to call a snap general election. Now Andrea Leadsom, leader of the Commons, has written to Labour to say that the government has no plans to reschedule the debate. If a handful of Conservative MPs rebelled in a vote, the government would be likely to lose.