Less than 48 hours after marching on Westminster against growing student debt, free education campaigners have decided to walk out in response to the new higher-education Green Paper.

Under the paper’s proposals, ministers would take control of tuition fee thresholds and some universities would be able to charge significantly more than others for topping a “value for money” table, creating a two-tier system.

Universities Minister Jo Johnson said the reforms would still be “delivering value for money for students” and doing “a better job still at delivering the pipeline of graduates we need for a 21st-century economy like ours.”