We need a sustainable system of student finance that promotes opportunity, encourages aspiration, increases social mobility and is governed by fairness. But all the Tories can offer is unsustainable, mounting debt, punishing students for wanting an education. And discouraging thousands of young people from climbing the ladder to a better life.

Maintenance grants, a proud Labour achievement which made it easier for children from lower and middle income families to go to university, have been abolished in one fell swoop. To be replaced with loans.

The graduate earnings premium, used by the Tories to justify many of their regressive higher education policies, is fast becoming a myth.

Angela Rayner Quotes