Theresa May has been branded “out of touch” and “desperate” after pledging to freeze university tuition fees.
The Prime Minister has announced tuition fees will be frozen at £9,250 until 2019, rather than increase with inflation by £250.
The announcement, which came on the eve of the Conservative Party conference, has been seen as an attempt to win young voters and refocus on domestic policy following months of turbulent Brexit negotiations.
Pressure is continuing to mount against Mrs May ahead of the Tory conference, with senior party members believed to be eyeing the leadership following June’s disastrous snap election.
Labour called the plans "desperate", and said the Conservatives had "no plans for young people".
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner 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.
"Another commission to look at tuition fees is a desperate attempt by the Tories to kick the issue into the long grass because they have no plans for young people and no ideas for our country. They are yesterday's party.
"The next Labour government will scrap tuition fees entirely and introduce a National Education Service for lifelong learning for the many, not the few. "
The plans were announced as Mrs May tries to stop Tory tensions over Brexit dominating the party's conference in Manchester.
She said: "We know that the cost of higher education is a worry, which is why we are pledging to help students with an immediate freeze in maximum fee levels... while the Government looks again at the question of funding and student finance."
But her comments were met with fury from Labour MPs, many of whom aired their views on 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!"
Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden tweeted: "Thanks for nothing £CPC17... £9250 & scrapping grants for loans still wreaks havoc for students now & puts off future ones."
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."
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon added: "A freeze in already exorbitant tuition fees is hardly a revolution."
Mrs May also revealed that the amount graduates can earn before making repayments will rise from £21,000 to £25,000 under the plans.
The figure will then increase in line with earnings after next year, with the Tories saying the package will produce a saving of £360 in 2018/19 for graduates earning at least £25,000.
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.
"Currently earn £25,000 and as you repay 9% of everything above £21,000, you repay £360 a year. Increase the threshold to £25,000 and you'll repay nothing. In fact, every single graduate earning over £21,000 a year will pay less.
"And it has a long term progressive benefit too. As most graduates won't clear their loans in full before it's wiped - by reducing what they repay each year, you reduce what they repay in total too - likely by £1,000s.
"The only losers? The top 23 per cent of graduate earners who'd have cleared the loan within 30yrs... If we are going to keep the current system, this is the right move - it's less easy to understand than lowering tuition fees or interest rates, even though both those would only help very high earning graduates."
