Gordon Brown made his last annual Budget Statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday 21 March.

NUS welcomed the Chancellor’s continued commitment to increasing the percentage of GDP spent on education, and expanding numbers of students in both FE and HE after Mr Brown committed to a 2.7 percent rise in education spending.

However, NUS voiced concern at the Chancellor’s proposal to sell £6 billion of student debt, arguing that the money should be ploughed back directly into higher education- rather than being absorbed into other commitments.

“A short-term windfall for the Treasury could conceal a long-term loss on the repaid debts and could form a pretext to apply commercial rates of interest on student loans,” NUS President, Gemma Tumelty warned.

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