Starmer to consider ways to make student loans ‘fairer’
Sir Keir Starmer has suggested he was open to making the student loans system “fairer” after pressure from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, Badenoch pressed Starmer on costly student loan repayments, which she suggested were at a “breaking point” for graduates.
The Tories have vowed to abolish real interest rates on plan 2 student loans on top of RPI inflation, which thereby increase debt levels for graduates beyond what they borrowed. The opposition party has said its plans to use CPI inflation and cut real interest rates would be funded by having fewer students attend university.
The Prime Minister said his government inherited a “broken” system but that it would “look to ways to make it fairer” for students.
Starmer also hit out at the Tories for having “scammed the country” with changes introduced after 2012 on hiking tuition fees and introducing plan 2 loans.
Starmer said: “They broke the system, they did it with a bloke over there [pointing to the Lib Dems] when they were in coalition together,” he adds.
Rachel Reeves froze the salary threshold for repayments at £29,386 for three years from April 2027, adding in January that it was part of getting “the balance right between tax and spending”.
The i Paper reported on Tuesday that the government was considering a change to the interest rate or repayment threshold on student loans in order to ease payments for graduates.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman pointed to Starmer’s words suggesting the government was keeping changes under review. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has also defended the government’s policy to re-introduce maintenance grants for students from low-income backgrounds.
Starmer attacksGreens and Reform UK
Starmer also championed economic data showing inflation dropping to three per cent and a larger budget surplus coming in January than expected.
Badenoch responded by hitting out at the government’s record on youth unemployment, adding that Starmer had been “distracted by Labour scandal after Labour scandal”.
She also claimed Labour backbenchers were worried about being labelled the “paedo defenders party”.
Starmer meanwhile used PMQs to launch attacks on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Zack Polanski’s Green Party ahead of a crucial by-election in Gorton and Denton on Thursday night.
The Prime Minister suggested Reform UK lacked “decency or backbone” and refused to answer Farage’s question on Chagossians. He also attacked the Greens for drug legalisation policies and the party’s stance on Nato.
An Opinium poll based on 400 responses put Green and Labour on 28 per cent of the vote share each while Reform UK stood on 27 per cent.