Mel Stride said that he thought the Conservatives could look at student finance as part of the party’s policy review (Alamy)
4 min read
The Conservatives have said that “everything has to be on the table” when it comes to the question of university finance reform.
In an interview with PoliticsHome, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said that the Tories could look at student fees as part of the opposition party’s ongoing policy review.
The Conservatives launched their policy review earlier this year, with Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch stressing that the party shouldn’t rush to formulate policies as it tries to recover from its historic general election loss to Labour last year.
The party performed particularly poorly with young people, and senior party figures, including Stride, have said there must be an emphasis on reconnecting with these voters. Shadow Treasury minister Gareth Davies said this week that the Tories were working with the Young Conservatives wing of the party on its policy renewal programme.
Asked by PoliticsHome if he would consider reducing or scrapping tuition fees if the Tories were to win the next general election, Stride said: “Everything has to be on the table.”
However, he stressed that the party had not yet formed its higher education policy.
“I can’t leave this interview with you going away thinking, Oh, conservatives are thinking about scrapping fees or whatever. All I can say is that everything has to be on the table…
“I can give you the broad shape of the clay, but I can’t give you a particularly well-defined pot, yet,” Stride said.
Many parties have previously pledged to reform higher education finances while in opposition, but later dropped the idea.
The Liberal Democrats, led by Nick Clegg, pledged to abolish tuition fees while campaigning for the 2010 general election, but infamously u-turned on the policy after forming a coalition government with the Conservatives.
And in 2024, now Prime Minister Keir Starmer abandoned a previous pledge to abolish tuition fees ahead of the July general election.
Tuition fees were first introduced in England in 1998 under the Tony Blair Labour government, starting at £1,000 per year, and rose to a maximum of £9,000 per year in 2012.
The fees were frozen in 2017 under former Conservative prime minister Theresa May at £9,250, until this Labour government raised them to £9,535 a year.
Speaking at an event earlier this month, Stride said young voters had “simply stopped listening” to the Conservatives, adding that he had been able to attend university and “not be saddled up with lots of debt as a consequence”.
The new Conservative mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow, last month told PoliticsHome that he would not have voted Tory at the July general election had he not been one of their candidates because his party had let down young people.
While Stride was keen to stress that he could not make any policy commitments as yet, he said his party must confront the “reality” that many young people are taking up university courses that are not “giving them the skills and opportunities for better earnings going forward”.
Stride said it was important to work out a way of making sure that courses not delivering on outcomes are “squeezed out”.
The Shadow Chancellor said that, at the moment, universities do not take on any risk around outcomes, adding: “You could have a model in which the university itself had a vested interest in a positive outcome”.
Asked by PoliticsHome if this would mean more accountability for universities, Stride said: “Yes.
“Not all students are delighted by the courses that they’re attending, and a lot of them work very hard and come out with loans and debts that need to be paid off, and we should be on their side.”
However, he stressed that the Conservatives were still at an “early stage of thinking”.
Speaking more broadly about how the Conservatives can win back young voters, Stride said: “We need to be demonstrating with a big, bold offer to younger people that they can have a slice of what our country is all about.”
Stride said he was worried about a “dislocation between people and younger people and the country”.
On how the Tories can win back young men who have switched their support to Reform, Stride said that it was important for the party to “shine a light of truth” on Nigel Farage’s party’s fiscal policies.
