Letter: Fee fears and campaign pledges

There is absolutely no question of top-up fees being introduced in the next Parliament, as your story suggested last week. Our manifesto makes it abundantly clear that, if elected, we would continue to rule out top-up fees - just as David Blunkett has already pledged to Parliament itself.

As a former chair and co-founder of the IPPR, I am very happy that it is viewed as "influential in developing ideas for the government". However, the IPPR is an independent think-tank and its research fellows are not spokespersons for the Labour Party.

Baroness Blackstone
Minister for higher education