Over at The Guardian today, there’s an interview with Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes following his recent appointment as the Coalition’s ‘advocate for access to education’ despite having not voted in favour of the Government’s tuition fees proposals.
Simon talks about the difference between government and opposition:
What is it like, being in power? What’s it like, after decades of not a sniff of it? “It is entirely different, and it has taken me and other people in our party a bit of time to get used to, to be honest.” Hughes, 59, has a calm, practiced warmth, and while there is plenty of the obligatory positive spin, there’s little sense of oratory or performance: he is direct and engaging. His voice unspools evenly, in sentences that seem perfectly cogent, but are often a lot less so written down. “It is much more stressful. Being in opposition is relatively easy, I have now discovered, because you don’t have to deliver. The second difference, and it took some months to [learn], is that if you really want to have an influence, you have to get in at the beginning of the debate, instead of just waking up at the 11th hour and saying, ‘I don’t like that. Please change it’.”
The necessity of compromise in Coalition, even on the party’s policy of scrapping tuition fees:
“You can have your principles, but whether you can deliver exactly how you thought you could is the question. We had to do the first compromise, which was to negotiate the coalition agreement … and I think we did well, objectively, in how much we got out of the agreement. I know that people might say the tuition fees increase is a change of principle, but if the principle is higher access, greater access, more people going to university at lesser cost to them, then you could even argue that the new system is not inconsistent with our principle, although there is a principle with which it is inconsistent, which is that we wanted to abolish [them].” …
“Obviously I wish we’d done things differently, but it was accepted, across the board, in all three parties, by the NUS, that there would have to be graduate contribution. And graduate contribution, graduate tax, whatever it is, isn’t conventional debt. It isn’t something that you have to pay – it is conditional on how well you do. The good news – and that hasn’t got out as clearly as it should – is that the new system will be much fairer in that sense, in that the more you earn, the more you pay. So we do have to try and separate the debt – [there] is the debt that you may get into if you borrow for your living costs and have to pay back at [a] huge interest rate, and the later payment that you have to make, but only as a deduction from your income.”
And on taking up that HE access job:
“Either nobody could have done the job, and the government is left to do everything, and then what chance would there be of my party regaining our reputation with young people? Or somebody does the job. They could be somebody who’s nothing to do with politics, or they could be somebody [like me] who believes that, by going out and engaging with people at secondary school, their parents, teachers and careers people, FE college students, university students, I can help restore their confidence in politics, but also in us.
“I mean, I’m not doing it so that suddenly we become popular, but by definition, if I do the job half well, I hope I will be able to rebuild some confidence that we understand where young people come from, that we are explaining why the decision was reached. Not trying to escape from the responsibility of it, but going beyond it.”
You can read the interview with Simon in full here.
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7 Comments
Mr Hughes said of the tripling of tuition fees “…..then you could even argue that the new system [the ‘new system’ being the tripling of fees; Mr Hughes’ principled belief used to be that fees must be abolished] is not inconsistent with our principle, although there is a principle with which it is inconsistent, which is that we wanted to abolish [them].” Verbal Acrobatics? Now, I don’ t know about anyone else out there, but if this is the “New Politics” so hyped by Mr Clegg just eight months ago, I would rather have very old politics.
This summary misses the most radical comment of all, namely that entrants to universities charging above £6,000 fees, should not have more from private schools than in the public as a whole. If taken literally, this means that the Oxbridge intake would be 93% state students and 7% private students. Compare this with the massive majority of public schools students, in the Cabinet, Shadow Cabinet, the BBC and the editors fo national newspapers all of which are overwhelmingly Oxbridge. Over time it would mean that the people who run this country will come from a selection of the whole population, who are the cleverest and have the best education.
Even, shifting the balance towards state students from private students will have an effect. Well done Simon. Go for it.
93% state students and 7% private students at Oxbridge – the LibDem capacity for self-delusion knows no bounds especially when Universities UK Chief Executive Nicola Dandridge said today that the government should not “interfere in universitiy admissions procedures” and spelling out the financial difficulties that the government proposals for two free years tuition fees will cause universities that have large numbers of poor students.
And when are we actually going to see the White Paper spelling out the ‘exceptional circumstances’ when unis can charge above £6K and the spelling out of the access conditions.
How can Hughes even begin to do his job if he can’t go into a school and answer the basic questions?
I’m confused – you appear to be in favour of tuition fees being both higher and lower.
Simon Hughes has simply lost the plot, these changes are not good for the long term future of our education system, I work in the education sector, we are working in fear of what they’re going to cut next, it is not a happy place.
@david pollard – you mean that because someone’s parent have sent them to a private school they will be banned form attending university -which is what Hughes is suggesting.
How is this Liberal?
I believe that Simn Hughes wil do an excellent job in explaining and amending the oppportunities and options available to students in their take-up of appenticeship,vocational training and commitment to higher education including 3-4 year university degree programmes for teenagers,especially those coming from households where they are first time entrants.
If the measures are to be fair besides fiscally prudent relating to the national mess inherited from Labour neglect to the Economy than new progressive absorbed Liberal Democrat post tuition fees increases should be heeded and implemented by Government .
I was in favour in the public interest that students tuition fees that have been increased to a max ceiling of £6000 but is it clear that student life under Labour would have been much worse with up-front payments and less assist help for mature and part-timers.
1.There has been a clear re-setting of financial help in the light of the abolition of the EMA as to date there is not a cogent arguent to students living on a weekly basis for spending on necessaries and books that they have not been deprived of something important.
2.The proposed student pack on how to make individual career pathways choices must begin from age 14 years as Year 9`s in EU member states including Germandy and Holland and Denmark all make school based and individual focussed tutorials available.This ensures that pupils choose from the earlier age broadly whether an academic or vocational skills programme is the right tailoring for them as an individual and tells what is involved.
3.Apprenticeships run over 5-7 years to train as acompetent plumber,electrician ,bricklayer,child care worker or civil engineer and all must start with early mentoring under tuterlage of hands-on craftsmen and women.
4.Professional quaifications to qualify in denistry,law,or teaching all depend on the ability to commit to higher education programmes.
5. Students coming from the least off families do not want to be confronted with higher than what they see as a fair and reasonable interest repayments on borowed money for 20 years of their working life.
6.Surely Government must bring out a new code for the behaviour of local companies who will be mandated to charge a minimum or in some case zero rated interest repayments?
Why should students be subject and `victims’ of and new licensing of commercial profiteering by student loans firms when bankers are being allowed to live with the high hog and champagne, whilst vulnerable students are made to look down the road at potential burdonsome and in some cases permanent debt ruin?