Andy Burnham should stick to his 2015 Labour leadership pledge and scrap tuition fees, the SNP has said.
Alex Kerr, the MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, urged the incoming prime minister to honour the promise he made when running against Jeremy Corbyn more than a decade ago.
Mr Burnham, who is expected to succeed Sir Keir Starmer in the coming days, said at the time he would replace tuition fees with a graduate tax to “lift the millstone of debt” from students.
The SNP said Mr Burnham should follow Scotland and make tuition free, which currently costs students south of the border £9,790 a year.
The party pointed to the recently released National Student Survey, which found overall satisfaction among students at Scottish universities had increased from 80.7% last year to 82.4% this year. However, no equivalent figure is available for England because the overall satisfaction question is only asked in the devolved nations.
Mr Kerr said: “In 2015, Andy Burnham said he would scrap tuition fees to ‘lift the millstone of debt’ from English students – the cost has gone up almost every year since then, so why has Andy Burnham gone silent?
“He should copy the SNP and scrap tuition fees, otherwise he’ll be off to the same start as Starmer – breaking promises the moment he becomes prime minister.
“Free tuition makes a real difference in people’s lives – we know that Scottish graduates start their careers in £35,000 less debt on average than their English counterparts, an immense saving.
“Andy Burnham should now honour his election pledge and lift English students out of tens of thousands of pounds of punishing student debt by scrapping tuition fees.”
Scottish universities have in recent years repeatedly warned about the sustainability of the current funding model, with hundreds of workers made redundant as part of cost-cutting measures.
Earlier this year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the Scottish Government may have to reconsider its policy of free university tuition due to mounting pressure on Holyrood’s budget, although ministers have repeatedly ruled out such a move.
Universities have also warned they have become increasingly reliant on income from international students to help subsidise Scots’ free tuition.
The IFS warned in 2024 that per-student funding for teaching Scottish students is 22% lower in real terms than in 2013–14.
Mr Burnham has been approached for comment.
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