Raising tuition fees during cost-of-living crisis ‘not going to happen’ – Halfon

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Raising the cap on tuition fees in England during a cost-of-living crisis is not going to happen “in a million years”, the universities minister has suggested. Robert Halfon, minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, told Times Higher Education there was “no way” that he was going to advocate increasing tuition fees. “But if you look at the research grant, the loans, the money we give – £1.5 billion Strategic Priorities Grant plus the £750 million on teaching facilities – universities get £40 billion a year.” Mr Halfon, MP for Harlow in Essex, added: “If you compare that to the FE sector over the years – although we’re increasing skills funding by £3.8 billion – given the difficult financial constraints we have, I can’t go to my constituents in Harlow and say, ‘By the way, on top of everything else, on top of all the other cost-of-living challenges, we’re going to increase your tuition fees’. “I just think we have to be real, that we have to live in the world as it is, which is an incredibly difficult one faced by cost-of-living challenges.” On the Government’s plans for student number controls on “poor quality” degree courses, Mr Halfon said he believed people would be “encouraged to go to university because they will know that if they are going to do a course they are going to have a good outcome”.