Jeremy Corbyn says he 'never promised' to wipe out student debt during the election campaign instead he insists he said that he wanted to 'deal with' student's debt. Many believe this to be a stark contradiction as the party was continutally reported in saying it would scrap tuition fees and debt ahead of the general election, which in turn helped attract a huge number of youth votes and earn the party a number of new MPs.
In June, ahead of the vote, Mr Corbyn spoke on student debt, which saddles some adults with upwards of £20,000 debt. He told NME magazine in June he wanted to look at ways to reduce, ameliorate, lengthen the repayment period or "some other means of reducing that debt burden".
He added: "I don't see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after.
"I will deal with it."
The Labour leader argues that his comments were made as a 'commitment' to erase student debt and admitted that the party did not know how much the eradication of student would actually cost.
He told BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I did not make a commitment we would write it off because I couldn't at that stage.
"I pointed out we had written the manifesto in a short space of time because there was a surprise election but that we would look at ways of reducing that debt burden, recognising that a lot of it is never going to be collected anyway and try and reduce that burden."
He added: "We never said we would completely abolish it because we were unaware of the size of it at the time."
Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner is also facing pressure from her Tory counterparts to apologise for ditching an election pledge to wipe out graduate debt.
Ms Rayner seems to have distanced herself from the promise made to young voters in the Commons last week. She sparked outrage when she said: "We have no plans to write off existing student debt.
“We never promised to do so.”
Education Secretary Justine Greening has demanded that Ms Rayner apologise for abandoning a “clear commitment to reduce the debts of millions of people”.
“In pretending that the Labour Party never intended to clear student debt, you are further misleading those who put their faith in you.”
Posted by Amanda Hopkins
www.yahoo.com
