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Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce plans to cut the number of UK university places by about 100,000 annually by reintroducing student number controls.

The MP for north-west Essex will use her first conference speech as leader to promise ¡°radical reforms¡± of higher education, labelling it a ¡°rigged system propping up low-quality courses¡±.

A Conservative government would abolish ¡°the status quo¡± around higher education, Badenoch will tell delegates in Manchester, by doubling funding for apprenticeships using public money redirected from ¡°debt trap degrees¡±.

Badenoch, who has led the party during its record low slide in the polls, undertook an engineering apprenticeship before studying engineering at the University of Sussex.

She has claimed to have been offered a place to study medicine at Stanford University ¨C but recent reports have called this into doubt.

In her speech, the leader, who used the party conference last year to claim that?Conservative students are being ¡°attacked¡± on campuses, is expected to say that thousands of young people leave university with ¡°crippling loans and no real prospects¡± every year.

¡°A rigged system [is] propping up low-quality courses, while people can¡¯t get high-quality apprenticeships that lead to real jobs.

¡°We will shut down these rip-off courses and use the money to double the apprenticeship budget, giving thousands more young people the chance of a proper start in life, just like I got.¡±

The party would introduce caps on funded courses that consistently ¡°lead to poor graduate outcomes¡±, allowing it to invest further in the ¡°apprenticeship revolution¡± it started, it said. Remaining funding will be used to support high-quality courses at research-intensive British universities.

Number controls on every subject group would reduce the number of annual university places by approximately 100,000 and save over ?3 billion in loan repayment losses, according to the party.

¡°All young people deserve the very best chance in life to succeed, and a real alternative if university is not the right path in life for them,¡± said a statement.

¡°But unlike Labour, who have only [paid] lip-service to higher education reform with no concrete plans to deliver it ¨C the Conservatives are setting out a plan for how the next Conservative government will deliver it.¡±

In a statement, Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said Labour has axed almost all higher-level apprenticeships, and warned that too many university courses leave students with ¡°little face-time, poor job prospects, and saddled with debts they can never repay¡±.

¡°That is a shoddy deal for young people, and for the taxpayer who ends up footing the bill.¡±

During his own leadership speech last week, prime minister Keir Starmer announced a new target for higher education participation which included apprenticeships.

A Labour spokesperson said Badenoch¡¯s pledge ¡°isn¡¯t worth the paper it¡¯s written on¡±, pointing out that the last government oversaw a ¡°collapse¡± in apprenticeship starts and completions.

Speaking at the conference before the new announcement was made, David Willetts, a former Conservative universities minister, said he understood the ¡°nostalgia¡± and ¡°endless popularity¡± for apprenticeships but that he had mixed views about them.

¡°I think it¡¯s above all¡­a desire to have a different economic structure than we have.

¡°It¡¯s telling us something about what people wish the British economy was like ¨C lots of long-term jobs in stable careers in manufacturing and industry, where you entered the engineering factory at 20 and left at 60.¡±

Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King¡¯s College London, said the public are ¡°putting an awful lot of hope on the idea of apprenticeships¡±.

¡°It¡¯s partly because we¡¯ve been so bad at doing them that people can put all of that hope on to them because they¡¯ve got so little experience of them.¡±

Duffy said the sector needed to be careful because these hopes may be slightly dashed when the public see the reality of how it will work.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com