Labour’s plans would cost billions

A proposal to abolish tuition fees and reintroduce maintenance grants would increase the deficit by £12.7 billion.

Today’s papers

The Labour Party’s pledge to scrap tuition fees in England and bring back maintence grants would most benefit high-earming graduates while the lowest earners would benefit very little, according to an analysis of the leaked Labour manifesto by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Moreover if the Labour party won power in the general election on 8 June, it would leave those who paid £9,000 a year not only with their existing debts but also facing tighter public finances due to the introduction of free tuition, we report. The Financial Times says that high earners whose tuition fees were waived would be the biggest gainers from Labour’s spending pledges. The BBC has a blog on what it bills as “a complete ideological change of direction from the past two decades”.