Hatching a plan

Labour wrangles with how to make university funding more affordable, writes Alison Goddard.

Liam Byrne, the shadow universities minister, has dubbed as "speculation" newspaper reports that Labour is intending to cut annual tuition fees in England to £6,000 or less. A speech that Mr Byrne is due to deliver today to an event on the role of universities in nurturing future leaders, innovation and economic competitiveness has been published; he is due to say that Labour would try to "bring down the levels of debt cancellation that are making the current system unsustainable". The text is included as part of our package of articles and analysis, available only to subscribers to HE, that examine how fees of £6,000 might work. The package will be updated with a commentary on the speech after Mr Byrne has delivered it this afternoon.

The plans developed by John Denham, a former universities minister and ex-aide to the current leader of the Labour Party, to cut tuition fees also involve reducing student numbers and encouraging more students to live at home. We have an article, available only to subscribers to HE, which reports how students who study from home are typically older and attend lower tariff universities than those who go away to study.