Labour attacked for 'betrayals'

Students have been betrayed by broken government promises over tuition fees, shadow education secretary David Willetts said in Wednesday's education debate.

Mr Willetts attacked the Labour Party's U-turn over tuition fees. He also accused the government of smothering universities with bureaucracy. "Universities are trapped in a paper chase. And some of the bureaucracy is generated by a policy that Labour explicitly denied before the last election. Tony Blair pledged: 'Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education.' New students arriving at college this term will know that they cannot trust Labour ever again."

Conference passed a motion from Cambridge City Conservative Association that deplored the damage done to the education system by recent proposals imposing more central government control.

It called on Conservatives to fight measures to extend local education authority bureaucracy and to curtail students' freedom of choice.