Theresa May targets younger voters with tuition fee freeze and boost for first-time buyers

Theresa May will attempt to win over younger voters with announcements on tuition fees and home-buying at the Conservative Party conference.

Tuition fees will be frozen at £9,250 and the amount graduates will have to earn before they start repaying their student loan will increase from £21,000 to £25,000. The Tories say the package will produce a saving of £360 in 2018/19 for graduates earning at least £25,000.

In an interview with The Sun on Sunday, the prime minister also outlined plans for a £10 billion expansion of the Help to Buy scheme, designed to help 135,000 first-time buyers get on the housing ladder.

She told the newspaper: “Too many young people fear they are going to be worse off than their parents.

“We have listened to those concerns and we are going to act to offer a fairer deal for students and young people.”

The reforms will be officially unveiled at the conference, which begins in Manchester on Sunday.

Part of the reason Mrs May lost her Commons majority in June's general election was younger voters' positive response to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour.

The prime minister hopes Sunday's announcement can go some way to reversing that trend.

Armed police were on patrol at the venue that will host the Tory conference in Manchester Credit: PA

Labour and the Liberal Democrats were sceptical, however.

Angela Rayner, Labour's shadow education secretary, whose party has said it would scrap tuition fees, said: "The fact Theresa May thinks she can win over young people by pledging to freeze tuition fees only weeks after increasing them to £9,250 shows just how out of touch she is."

Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Layla Moran called the plan a "cynical attempt to shake the magic money tree".

"The Conservatives have consistently worked against the young," she said. "This U-turn just shows they fear there being a change of government, not that they have had a change of heart."

Some took to Twitter. Luke Pollard, MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, said: "What a total cheek of the PM to boast about freezing tuition fees having just hiked them, cut support and increased loan interest rates!"

Former schools minister Lord Adonis, who has previously argued that university bosses should halve their salaries to help efforts to lower tuition fees, said on Twitter: "Tinkering with #9,250 tuition fees +6.1% interest is like tinkering with the poll tax: expensive & futile. Abolition/radical reform needed."

But Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, welcomed the move.

Writing on his Facebook page, he said: "This will save many lower and middle earning graduates £1,000s."

Despite the policy announcements, it is Tory tensions over Brexit that look set to dominate the Conservative gathering.

Boris Johnson has caused waves ahead of the party conference Credit: PA

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson caused waves on the eve of the conference as he insisted that any transition phase must not last "a second more" than two years.

The intervention drew a stern rebuke from former education secretary Nicky Morgan who said people behaving like Mr Johnson have "no place in a responsible government".

She was later backed, by pro-Remain Tory MP Anna Soubry, who said on Twitter: "Nicky Morgan and Ruth Davidson talking much sense. People are fed up with Tory wars and Brexit mixed messages. Boris Johnson must grow up or go."