For years, our political opponent, especially the hypocritical Labour party, have lambasted us for our role in tuition fees during the coalition, conveniently overlooking Labour’s role of introducing them in the first place after saying they wouldn’t and then introducing top-up fees when they said they wouldn’t.
This ham-fisted government has messed about with student fees ever since getting back into power, first raising the interest rate and then capping it. Saying they would reintroduce maintenance grants and then not doing so.
Now a group of mainly poor working-class students are being told that the people responsible for student loans have mistakenly given them loans, but on further investigation it turns out that they were not entitled to them.
Are those who made the mistake taking any responsibility for that? No, don’t be silly, it’s the fault of the students who took loans they thought they were entitled to. They should have known better and now they suddenly must repay them immediately at once. Only they really can’t afford to do so.
And what of Labour ministers? Surely, representing the working class, as they often claim to do, they will rush in to help these students who really can’t afford this cockup. Er, no. Ministers have remained silent.
One might have hoped that LibDem MPs would jump at the chance to do something right about student fees, but again silence.
Come on LibDem MPs! Time to speak out for these part time students who somehow manage to combine jobs with study at weekends and in the evenings. Tell the government to foot the bill for their agency’s incompetence and sack the people who cocked up in the first place. Penalise the people who made the mistake, not their unfortunate victims.
* Dr Michael Taylor has been a party member since 1964. He is currently living in Greece.
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8 Comments
“ have lambasted us for our role in tuition fees during the coalition”
And rightly so. The fact that Labour also has dirty hands on this matter does not, in any way, lessen our own culpability for that embarrassing episode in our history.
We do need to be able to outline our views on situations like the one outlined in this article, but we must do so in a way the takes full responsibility for our failings while seeking to offer suggestions of how to make things better going forward.
@ Joan Summers Well said, Joan. Great to read some plain speaking without any gloss on it on LDV. Honesty ought to be the first pre-requisite of all political parties and I’m afraid there’s been too much ducking and weaving since 2010.
Joan. I was not suggesting otherwise. Our u-turn on tuition fees was shameful. I argued against signing the NUS pledge in the first place. Had I been listened to we would have avoided the whole issue. I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Labour on this issue and I stand by that. Apparently we are to be held to a higher standard than any other political party for our mistakes and Labour is to be let off scott free!
Our MPs have a chance to do some good on an issue that has plagued us for years. I cannot understand why they don’t take it.
Might it be that “professional” politicians do not always understand the profound difference between resources, such as well educated and skillful young people, and money, which is not a true resource but a medium to aid exchanges of goods and services?
Might socio-economics exams for M. P. S help?
I too was appalled that we reneged on our “pledge” not to raise tuition fees. However, as Michael Taylor argues, we need to fight our conner rather than just hang our heads in penitence. Viz:
1. Grow up: junior parties in coalitions do not get all their own way. The Tories had over 300MPs: we had only 57. These did a good job in putting the brakes on the Tories, (I have a list of over twenty examples.) The Tories were much worse when they took complete control without us after 2015.
2. The student fee system the Coalition introduced was better than the one Labour left behind in that:
a) Labour’s fees had to be paid up front: ours required no up-front payment
b) the Coalition’s loan system was available to part-time students, Labour’s was not.
The major problem “left behind” now is the ridiculously high rate on interest. We could advocate that future loans should be interest free or, at worst, the repayments tied to the rate of inflation and nothing more.
Unless the current government reduces fees to 2010 levels, they now own them. The current scheme is worse than we left it.
An issue with the loan scheme is its complexity. I know how had it is to model as I tried when my son was in Sixth Form and I wondered if he might want one. There are so many variables and what-ifs that an ordinary person cannot say if they would pay a lot of interest or be forgiven the lot. It was so bad that Osborne could not “sell the loan book” as he wanted, as no buyer could understand what they might be buying. They would want the contracts retrospectively changed. Too difficult (and wrong!),
Suppose we proposed that a Lib Dem government would replace the loans with grants for fees and maintenance that *would cost the same* how much would the grant be?
We do not know.
Would it be possible for an expert policy working group to work out an estimate?
Just as a figure for the party to throw out as a headline for a policy to bury the historic loan policy. Even a flat amount. Means testing could be studied later, once a basic framework was costed. Children of oligarchs and billionaires could be left out of estimates in the first estimate.
One of the most critical decisions students make during their last years at school is whether to apply to go to university. Financial considerations matter for many and it is government’s responsibility to not let it be the primary consideration. University offers many important advantages and for some is the only way to pursue their chosen career. More resources should be specifically put into allowing students to make an informed decision balancing varous short and long term objectives and helping them to mitigate barriers to following their chosen route.