Liam Byrne: Labour planning “long-term shift to a graduate tax”

During the 2010 leadership contest, Ed Miliband announced that he favoured a Graduate Tax to replace university tuition fess. Yet at Labour conference in 2011, Miliband announced that the party’s position was now to back undergraduate fees of £6000 per year.

In an interview with the Times Higher Education Supplement, new Shadow HE Minister Liam Byrne has confirmed that it is Labour’s “long-term goal” to introduce a graduate tax:

“The policy we’ve set out is what we would do if we were in government today. Ed Miliband also said in his leadership campaign, our long-term goal must be to move towards a graduate tax.”

“What we’ll have to do in our manifesto is take our starting point of £6K fees, explain how we see the situation for 2015 to 2020, and how we’ll see a long-term shift to a graduate tax.”

Labour backs lower fees now, but – at some point in the future – a graduate tax. All clear….?