Lord Sugar has called on Jeremy Corbyn to stand down as Labour leader for “falsely promising” to write off student-loan debt.

Mr Corbyn has said he did not make a formal pledge on the issue during the general election campaign. But, Lord Sugar, the host of The Apprentice host and a former Labour peer, claimed Mr Corbyn “lied” to attract young voters.

On Twitter Lord Sugar wrote: “I think you should step down and let someone else rescue the Labour Party.

“You got votes with false promises.”

The peer went on to urge the day-time TV show Good Morning Britain to challenge Mr Corbyn over his apparent backtracking.

He wrote: “Corbyn alluded to refund student debt to get votes from the young .You need Corbyn on the show ask him why he lied.”

The billionaire businessman has been openly critical of Mr Corbyn’s handling of antisemitism within Labour ranks.

Before the election it was widely reported Mr Corbyn had hinted that he would eradicate historic debt for thousands of recent graduates.

In an interview with music magazine NME he said he did not understand why students who had the “historical misfortune” of paying annual tuition fees of £9,000 should be “burdened excessively”.

However, in an interview on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show last Sunday, he said his party did not commit to erasing student debt.

Mr Corbyn said: “I did not make a commitment we would write it off because I couldn’t at that stage.

“I pointed out we had written the manifesto in a short space of time because there was a surprise election but that we would look at ways of reducing that debt burden, recognising that a lot of it is never going to be collected anyway and try and reduce that burden.

“We never said we would completely abolish it because we were unaware of the size of it at the time.”