Shadow Cabinet members will be present at university freshers' fairs to publicise the Conservative's policy on scrapping tuition fees.

Damian Green, the shadow education secretary, said: "It will be the biggest campaign that the party has ever run. We want to make clear that there isn't a catch; no fees means exactly what it says."

However, the policy has not garnered universal popularity within the party itself.

Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute, said: "They are strangely wrong on this. It is against traditional Tory thinking. It is disappointing. What we need in higher education is a proper market. So I welcome top-up fees. I think the government's proposals are the right and sensible move."

Lord Baker of Dorking, the former Conservative education secretary, has also expressed his concerns.

"I hope that we will come to our senses," he said. "The sums simply don't add up. It is a strange policy reversal when Labour is trying to open up a market with universities and we want to renationalise them in an attempt to be populist. Neil Kinnock tried one populist alternative after another, and it did him no good at all."

However, a Central Office strategist said that the party did not care about the views of "a few old dinosaurs".

"We are not going to say, 'Oh, Ken Baker doesn't like it, so back to the drawing board'. It is the most popular policy we've ever had."