Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has slammed Keir Starmer for claiming that he would not be able to afford to go to university today.

While speaking to students during a visit to Worthing yesterday, the Labour leader said he did not think he would be able to go to university now due to the cost of living crisis and other costs studying can entail.

Sir Keir met two students from Bhasvic who plan to go to university but have decided to take a gap year to work to save up first.

However, Gillian Keegan, the MP for Chichester, hit back at Keir Starmer’s comments and said that university remains affordable to everyone.

The Argus: Keir Starmer met two students from Worthing yesterdayKeir Starmer met two students from Worthing yesterday (Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)

Speaking to Times Radio, she said the student loan and maintenance loan systems had allowed more people from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university.

She said: “Since 2010, you are now 86 per cent more likely to go to university if you are from a disadvantaged background.

“Many, many young people, many more than ever before, are going to university so it is a route that is accessible and it is accessible for everybody.”

Her comments came in the run-up to GCSE results day, when hundreds of thousands of students will find out their grades to secure places in sixth form and apprenticeships.

Ms Keegan told Times Radio that GCSEs are “very important exams” and said: “They were the thing that got me on to my apprenticeship. For me, because that was my step into the workplace, they were a game changer and I also didn’t think I was going to pass many and I ended up passing more than I thought.

“For me, they were vitally important, but clearly every part of your journey is to the next destination and it depends what that destination is.”

Ms Keegan sparked controversy last week during A-level results day after saying that students would not be asked about their A-level grades in ten years’ time.

In an interview with Sky News, she defended her remarks, which were branded as “incredibly rude and dismissive” by Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson.

Ms Keegan said: “As somebody who has worked for 30 years in business, that has employed hundreds if not thousands of people, I can honestly say I have never asked anybody for their A-level results or what grades they got. That is just the reality.”

While on his visit in Worthing, Sir Keir also criticised the current tuition fees system but refused to explain how Labour would change it if elected.

He said: “I do think the current scheme is unfair and ineffective and that is why we will change it.

“I am not going to pretend that there isn’t huge damage to the economy and that has meant that some of the things that an incoming Labour government would want to do we are not going to be able to do in the way we would want in the way we would want.

“It doesn’t mean we are going to leave the current system as it is, because we want a fairer deal for students, a more effective deal for students and for universities.”