Here’s part of what Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, said on the BBC’s World at One today:
This is the worse type of politics for me. It is the politics that may appeal to people on the surface but it is financially illiterate…If any other party was launching a policy that effectively meant that poorer students would be subsidising city investment banking graduates, which is what this does, there would be protests in the streets and it would be led by the Labour party. I simply don’t understand how they’ve launched this.
Let’s look at this very simply. It’s not the amount that you borrow for university that counts, it’s how much you have to repay. You repay 9% of everything earnt above £21,000 and you do that for 30 years. So, as your previous guest said, most people will not repay in full over 30 years their £6,000 tuition loan and the maintenance loan they get on top. In fact, I’ve done calculations that it will only be graduates on starting salaries of £35,000 a year and we assume that goes up ahead of inflation year after year. That’s why I say city investment bankers, city accountants and city lawyers are the people who will gain from this policy. But to do that universities will be able to give less bursaries for poorer students.
…but the whole concept here of cutting tuition fees is a populist focus group policy that does not benefit the people that the public thinks it does and the sooner we stop calling these things student loans and start calling them what they really are, which is a graduate contribution which only the successful financially actually pay back, the less people will be scared off going to university and the more we can have a constructive discussion about it. And Labour has deliberately, I believe, fallen into the trap of going with the didactic that this is a debt, and all their language is about talking about a debt, when what really counts is how much you repay afterwards and all sides of the political spectrum need to change on this.
Here’s the full audio of what Mr Lewis said on the programme:
Featured article image by the Cabinet Office
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Jago Hazzard on the complicated history of Turnham Green
Suitably inspired, I return to Suffolk
Investment, investment, investment.
Definitely a Lib Dem conference!
Ed Davey tries to name all the Lib Dem MPs while on a roller coaster
Fraser's West End ward surgeries later today #dundeewestend
What's next?
Simon R
Nigel Jones
Roland
Joe Bourke
Matt (Bristol)
66 Comments
Just for the sake of balance you understand, here (from his website) is another part of what Martin Lewis said:
“Labour isn’t the first one to be financially illiterate over the tuition fee issue. The Coalition itself did it when it set up the new 2012 system. Not just because it fundamentally miscalculated how much people would repay, but also because it allowed universities to offer some poorer students a choice between a fee waiver and cash as a bursary. …I was out there shouting vociferously: “Make sure you take the cash.””
Thanks for that, Paul.
And if any of us do want to address this topic in literature, that’s who and what we quote.
Financially illiterate? Is that when you consider the effects of reducing fees in isolation without considering the increased contributions those high earning graduates would make as a result of the changes to pension taxation? Oh, right, so that would be the IFS and Mr Lewis then.
4 articles on the same subject is somewhat going OTT is it not ?
It certainly gives the appearance of a party seriously rattled by the policy of an opponent.
“graduate contribution” – A very good term, because as is clearly the case the majority of UK graduates won’t actually repay the monies they borrowed to pay for their university education. Perhaps the LibDems should take this rebranding on board as it does enable the debate to move on.
Students who drop out without graduating will also have to repay their loans so perhaps we should call it a “student contribution”.
@MartinB
I rather think a party seriously rattled by the policy of an opponent would avoid all mention of the topic.
I believe, instead, that there’s a strong feeling that Labour have got themselves into a serious mess. Taking over 40 months from initial populist announcement to providing some detail demonstrates the difficulty they’re in.
In fairness won’t those city bankers. city lawyers, city accountants etc be the ones that will be worse off under the new pension rules Labour will bring in to pay for the cuts in tuition fees? So surely the better off will be subsidising the lower paid graduates? I’m no expert and I’m sure Simon will shoot me down if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing that’s how the man/woman in the street will see it.
@SimonShaw
I rather suspect Labour have spent time costing the proposal to ensure it is do-able rather than land themselves in the same position as Clegg !
Odd that so few of the usual LD tribalists have seen fit to comment on the various articles isn’t it.
If it takes this Labour leadership 40 months to work out how to spend £3bn, then how are they going to fare running the government with a £700bn budget?
Duncan Scott
This was a headline policy that had to be right in time for the GE, it doesn’t matter how long it took to get there. Now in every LibDem/Lab marginal Labour will hammer on about reducing tuition fees and the LibDems will have to argue against it. I think Miliband and Balls have realised that to win the GE they have to smash the LibDems, this could well be the policy that does it.
Every Lib Dems criticise Labour’s policy on this, they enable the debate to be focused back onto “Clegg and the Lib Dems lied to you”.
Better to forget tuition fees and argue that pension rules need to be simplified so that everyone gets the same relief, say 25%.
Then announce a proposal to allow people to withdraw the tax relief from their pension plan once every five years and spend it.
It is profoundly sad that so many Lib Dems still choose to pretend that it is all about the fairest scheme to fund Universities and ignore the fact that to the electorate it is simply about not trusting Nick. Sadly our great party will continue to go downhill until they realise their error of their ways and based on the reaction of so many today there is a long way still to go.
The way to get political capital out of this is not to point out that our policy is more socialist than Labour, but to point out all the reasons the policy is bad, like Vince Cable did:
1. Hits the poorest students due to repayments.
2. Hits universities and/or the treasury.
3. Increases instability and uncertainty.
@Eddie Sammon
The policy
A Makes no difference whatsoever to the poorest students
B Makes no difference to university funding and may actually provide a surplus to the treasury compared with th existing system
C Is a policy. They’re supposed to make a difference. Are political parties meant to maintain the status quo in order to avoid uncertainty? Should we abolish elections to get rid of uncertainty?
Hi Steve, Labour want to pay for it using pensions tax relief for high earners, even though the best way to do this is to cut the lifetime and annual allowance, which the coalition has already done, but regardless this higher rate pensions tax relief was meant to pay to get rid of the deficit, which is partly why the policy is getting panned across the board.
I’m no fan of the Conservatives, not even their fabled economic policy, I’m just saying.
Any policy which is not a genuine and open/transparent tax on ALL graduates (including historic ones like me) is stupid and partial.
If Labour brings out a silly policy, leave it to sensible independent commentators to criticise it. The minute a Lib Dem mentions the word ‘tuition fees’ all it does for most young people is make them switch off and blank over and remember Nick Clegg’s ‘pledge’ which was then claimed to be no such thing.
Simon Shaw 28th Feb ’15 – 12:01am…….@MartinB
I rather think a party seriously rattled by the policy of an opponent would avoid all mention of the topic…….I believe, instead, that there’s a strong feeling that Labour have got themselves into a serious mess. Taking over 40 months from initial populist announcement to providing some detail demonstrates the difficulty they’re in….
A party ‘thinking clearly’ would avoid the issue; a party ‘rattled’ would start lashing out in all directions……
40 months to define a promise sounds rather better than 7 months to betray a promise…and I’m sure that, combined with the re-opening of this “Pandora’s Box”, will be how the electorate will view this…
If memory serves, when the dust settled all that remained was the ” Spirit of Hope”…..At the moment it seems that, as May approaches, it’s all we have left…
Just watched the BBC news at 10 from last night on this and their coverage was appalling, so much so I lost interest and switched it off.
The current fee is not £9,000, but the current maximum fee. The BBC journalist who had an opportunity to scrutinise Miliband tried to go for a populist question about how in touch Ed Miliband is with student living costs.
I need to get on Twitter so I can point this out in public. Private complaints achieve little.
@expats
You seem to be suggesting that the issue of student finance wouldn’t have come up in the forthcoming general election but for the fact that yesterday Labour finally managed to cobble together a detailed policy and/or the Lib Dems (Vince in particular) have laid into the inconsistencies.
Are you by any chance new to politics?
Perhaps I should say again that this is purely an English issue. Students in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different regimes, made up of fees, loans and/or grants. These apply to students from those countries and to non-UK EU students. For a student from one part of the UK studying in another part, the situation is more complex!
Against this, you might like to look at Martin Lewis’s own more nuanced guide to how the system works: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes Graduates may pay as much as £98,000 in loan repayments – and the city bankers won’t pay that much.
One of the nasty aspects of the system set up by the coalition was the way in which universities were urged to set up “bursaries” of money off fees for poorer students when what was needed was cash up front for cost of living. There’s quite a lot of university accommodation which costs more than the maximum student loan (or, for poorer students, student loan plus grant). Eating on campus is often run by private providers too; there are no longer the cheap student cafés that existed ten years ago. As a result poor students are appallingly disadvantaged at university. Homelessness among students is no longer uncommon (most homeless students manage to couch-surf with friends but this doesn’t help their studies). Poor students sometimes have to choose between books and food. Remember that students are now required to have networked computers and to pay to print their coursework – and this isn’t cheap.
The increase in tuition fees seems to have acted like an invitation to profiteer at students’ expense. Labour’s suggestion of more money available for living expenses is a step in the right direction though I’m sure that many providers of university accommodation and other university services see this as a further invitation to raise their prices.
I’d like to see someone addressing the serious question of student poverty – which has a serious impact on the ability of poorer students to do well – but I’m not holding my breath.
One of the problems is that most LibDem workers who are out on the doorsteps prefer Labours policy to the coalition policy on tuition fees. I think this is a masterstroke by Miliband and Balls, knock £3,000 off tuition fees and change pension allowances on the wealthy to pay for it. How many people are going to disagree with that, no matter what Martin Shaw says I don’t think there will be many.
How can you trust labour on Tuition fees? Didn’t they say they wouldn’t introduce them and then they did? Didn’t they say they wouldn’t raise them, and then they did. They set forth a review which recommended unlimited fees, and 5 years after the event they publish proposals that can only be seen as an electorally skewed. Who really believes this is their last take on the matter – so more importantly, what’s next Ed?
Simon Shaw 28th Feb ’15 – 9:23am …[email protected] seem to be suggesting that the issue of student finance wouldn’t have come up in the forthcoming general election but for the fact that yesterday Labour finally managed to cobble together a detailed policy and/or the Lib Dems (Vince in particular) have laid into the inconsistencies.
Are you by any chance new to politics?
There are now four, or is it five, separate threads on Tuition Fees; unprecedented.?. I would far rather fight the election at a time ( and on ground) of my choosing, instead of the ‘knee-jerk’ ‘yah-boo’ reaction to Labour’s plan….
As for my being new to politics??? Are you incapable of writing a response without disparaging asides and snide remarks?
@expats
I’ve no idea who you are, so I’ve no idea if you are new to politics or not.
Do you think that Labour’s proposal is a good progressive one that should be supported. I don’t, and I think it is up to us to help ensure that its serious flaws are exposed.
The reason I made my light hearted comment to you is that you appeared to think that the issue of student finance wouldn’t have come up in the forthcoming general election if we didn’t mention it.
I just think that’s totally naive.
And I’m sorry, but we don’t get to fight the election at a time ( and on ground) of our choosing.
Why would universities be paying less bursaries to poorer students? Actually £200m is going towards increasing maintenance grants: and Labour claims this policy will be fully funded, meaning all of the money lost by reducing fees will be made up by the state. If that is true then there’s no reason for universities to reduce spending in any area.
I love the way that it’s only city bankers and accountants that earn over £35k in Martin Lewis’s world. What about computer programmers, doctors, head teachers, MPs? Or for that matter university professors?
It’s also financially illiterate* in that ignores the fact that the major effect of this policy is not on the people who pay it but what happens when they don’t. Instead of pretending this isn’t government borrowing until the future taxpayer has to pick up the pieces of Cable’s inability to understand basic economic principles (the idea that anything less than £9k a year was going to be the norm) and do simple sums means that large proportions of this “student debt” gets dumbed back onto the main debt balance sheet.
And it ignores that the fact that Cable’s scheme makes no guarantees about the terms under which repayments will be made so it’s both possible and likely that, in fact, the £21k threshold *won’t* track increases in earnings and that more and more people will end up paying more.
That’s before we get into any discussion about the principle of the matter and the sheer amount of damage done to the quality and character of the university education done by the utter stupidity of this stumbled step into further marketisation.
* – come on, it’s today’s favourite phrase!
@expats: “Are you incapable of writing a response without disparaging asides and snide remarks?”
As far as I can tell, he is indeed incapable of posting without resorting to snide remarks and rudeness. He is, in my opinion, the rudest person on this site and for some reason the rules about politeness here on LDV don’t seem to apply to him. Several other people on this site have had their comments blocked for much less, yet Mr. Shaw seems to have been given free reign to be as impolite as he likes. He does come across as a thoroughly unkind, insensitive and often illiberal person.
Only a couple of weeks ago, Lewis told an audience of students at the LSE that he was “torn on” the idea of reducing fees, since he could see that it had “some merit”. Perhaps he was suffering from a little financial illiteracy at the time. It can happen to anybody – Vince Cable had a particularly bad attack yesterday.
Lewis’s main argument seems to be that poor people who are alarmed by the idea of a £45,000 debt are, in fact, stupid and worrying unnecessarily – which is an easy thing to say when you’re worth nearly a hundred million.
@Stephen Campbell
“He is, in my opinion, the rudest person on this site and for some reason the rules about politeness here on LDV don’t seem to apply to him. Several other people on this site have had their comments blocked for much less, yet Mr. Shaw seems to have been given free reign to be as impolite as he likes.”
There is a lot of truth in that. I once had a comment banned because I used the word “daft”. Simon says worse things in nearly every post he contributes. Not that I mind – in fact I wish he posted more.
@Jack
“I love the way that it’s only city bankers and accountants that earn over £35k in Martin Lewis’s world. What about computer programmers, doctors, head teachers, MPs? Or for that matter university professors?”
Well, quite. I’m not convinced by Lewis’s projections at all. According to him, his figures are all based on the idea that a graduate’s salary will increase steadily by 3% pa through the course of their career. Hence, he reasons, the only people who will ever pay back more than two thirds of the current loans are those who start on ridiculously high salaries.
This doesn’t seem remotely realistic to me. I’m pretty sure all the graduates I know – including myself – have experienced several sudden substantial pay increases during their careers, either though promotion or moving to a different employer.
If my own salary had followed the trajectory predicted by Lewis, I calculate that I would be earning less than half of what I actually am earning now.
@ Malc.
“One of the problems is that most LibDem workers who are out on the doorsteps prefer Labours policy to the coalition policy on tuition fees. I think this is a masterstroke by Miliband and Balls”
No they don’t and no it isn’t.
It’s just more proof of the shallowness and cynicism of the Labour party and those who support it who think is a good idea.
Labour can’t think up a single policy on the basis of what is right in principle and practice. They are so wrapped up in their warped, contorted political strategies that they wouldn’t even recognise such a policy if it jumped up and bit them on the nose.
Moderator’s note:
Stuart 12:43:
“I once had a comment banned because I used the word “daft”.”
Stuart, our archive retains all published and moderated/unpublished comments. I have just checked and we have only ever left unpublished a handful of comments from you and none of them contain the word “daft”. We have however published 1,762 comments from you and (apart from the one above) three of those contain the word “daft”, from the following times/dates:
26/9/14 06:54
24/6/14 11:12 (“daftness”)
24/6/14 10:45
@Paul Walter
So what is your explanation for allowing Mr Shaw to post? I’ve never once read anything constructive in his numerous comments.
Stephen Campbell/Stuart…..I don’t wish to alienate anyone on this site…However, I posted my 28th Feb ’15 – 10:14am because I resent being spoken to as if I my opinion is of no value….
Simon Shaw, by all means disagree with me but please refrain from patronising asides….I have read several of your recent posts and you seem to feel that gratuitous innuendo, regarding those with opposing views, are acceptable….They do not, at least to me, follow the spirit of LDV rules…
@Steve
“Financially illiterate? Is that when you consider the effects of reducing fees in isolation without considering the increased contributions those high earning graduates would make as a result of the changes to pension taxation? Oh, right, so that would be the IFS and Mr Lewis then.”
Actually, Lewis has confirmed himself (on Twitter and in comments on his blog) that what you say there is completely right. He has complained that his “financially illiterate” comment has been misquoted and that he was only talking about the tuition fee size itself, and was specifically NOT taking any account of the changes to pension relief.
Which seems an odd way of looking at it, given that the pension relief is a key part of the whole policy.
@Steve-freedom of speech? I really don’t think we should encourage the editors to start censoring comments on the ground they lack constructiveness. If Simon Shaw wants to make comments which lack constructive value, that is his right…
Should we abolish elections to get rid of uncertainty?
Good question,so what year is the EU referendum?
Steve
If anyone wants to report comments they can do so via the LDV team email address [email protected]
If you have any specific comments to report them please do so there. When we see comments that do not comply with our policy we take action.
RC
“It’s just more proof of the shallowness and cynicism of the Labour party and those who support it who think is a good idea.”
The last poll I saw ref tuition fees was a YouGov one which showed 54% to 21% in favour of reducing tuition fees, even if that meant less funding to the universities. However, the Labour party policy is to ensure the universities will be no worse off. Why is it “shallow” or “cynical” to give the people what they want when it is affordable?
@malc
“The last poll I saw ref tuition fees was a YouGov one which showed 54% to 21% in favour of reducing tuition fees”
Did the poll ask if people were in favour of reducing the fees for the highest earning 50% of graduates while maintaining them unchanged for the lowest earning 50%?
If and when that is asked I could imagine there being a 54% to 21% majority against the idea.
Simon Shaw
Do you support the Lib Dem policy of raising the tax threshold further, even though the IFS tells us 75% of the gains will go to taxpayers in the top 50% of the income distribution?
Simon.
It reduces it for everyone because whether you walk into a job at £35, 000 or work your way up to earning it an £18.000 loan is less and generates less interest than a £27,000 loan. Below that it really doesn’t make any difference, The loans will be written off eventually meaning that you still owe nothing. You could of course ask the poorest students what they think of Labour’s proposed increase in the maintenance grant!
Simon Shaw
The maximum fees will be reduced from £9,000 to £6,000 for everyone. All graduates – regardless of their income – will have less debt when they finish university.
When someone claims not to understand something it is often hard to know whether it is simply an inability to grasp the complexity or whether it is a wilful refusal to engage with the implications. Unlike Simon Shaw, I would avoid responding to comments that appear to be wilfully obtuse.
I am not sure what level of intelligence is required to accept that poorer graduates in the £15 to 22 000 bracket are better off that under Labour’s old system and that under their new proposals there would be an advantage for more of the more wealthy graduates. Indeed the very wealthy graduates would have the biggest financial advantage.
None of this logically defends the present system in absolute terms, it merely illustrates how other systems are worse.
No scheme of this sort can be looked at in isolation; obviously an increase of the higher 40p rate could offset Labour’s regressive proposals. This could well be an implication that they do not want to highlight. What is interesting however is not so much what Miliband is proposing, but what it tells us about Miliband’s politics and how he operates. It seems here that he will push a policy through against logic and against more worthy targets to benefit from a claimed £3bn tax take from pensioners rather than go back on his 2011 promise.
Although I very much doubt that Miliband will gain enough seats to become PM, in party political terms, this will be a great pity for Lib Dems as the outcome of the election that would most likely improve Lib Dem ratings would surely be a spell of Miliband as PM. Clegg has suffered greatly from his position in power, I would predict that it would not be any better for Miliband.
“malc 1st Mar ’15 – 1:23am
Simon Shaw
The maximum fees will be reduced from £9,000 to £6,000 for everyone. All graduates – regardless of their income – will have less debt when they finish university.”
But as Martin Lewis very eloquently says above:
“. It’s not the amount that you borrow for university that counts, it’s how much you have to repay. You repay 9% of everything earnt above £21,000 and you do that for 30 years. So, as your previous guest said, most people will not repay in full over 30 years their £6,000 tuition loan and the maintenance loan they get on top. In fact, I’ve done calculations that it will only be graduates on starting salaries of £35,000 a year and we assume that goes up ahead of inflation year after year. ”
He goes on to make an excellent point:
“…the whole concept here of cutting tuition fees is a populist focus group policy that does not benefit the people that the public thinks it does and the sooner we stop calling these things student loans and start calling them what they really are, which is a graduate contribution which only the successful financially actually pay back, the less people will be scared off going to university and the more we can have a constructive discussion about it. And Labour has deliberately, I believe, fallen into the trap of going with the didactic that this is a debt, and all their language is about talking about a debt, when what really counts is how much you repay afterwards”
@AndrewR
“Do you support the Lib Dem policy of raising the tax threshold further, even though the IFS tells us 75% of the gains will go to taxpayers in the top 50% of the income distribution?”
I’m not a great fan of the policy as it happens, but not for the reason you suggest. I think you are probably taking a single bit of IFS analysis without considering the broader picture.
If you were (for example) to reduce the 40% tax band threshold, or increase the Basic Rate of tax from 20% to 21% then that 75% IFS figure would obviously drop.
@Glenn
“It reduces it for everyone because whether you walk into a job at £35, 000 or work your way up to earning it an £18.000 loan is less and generates less interest than a £27,000 loan. Below that it really doesn’t make any difference, The loans will be written off eventually meaning that you still owe nothing.”
Yes, your last sentence is essentially the reason why the IFS and Martin Lewis have criticised Labour’s proposal in the way that they have. It’s only a benefit to the highest earning graduates. The rich pay less under Labour – a great slogan!
“You could of course ask the poorest students what they think of Labour’s proposed increase in the maintenance grant!”
I imagine they would be initially supportive, but do bear in mind that Labour’s help to the poorest students is less than 10% (appalling, isn’t it?) what they are giving to the richest students. Also there is the cut in burseries, so poorer students overall are probably worse off under Labour.
Simon Shaw
Is there any actual Lib Dem policy you believe in?
Can you tell me what policies you want to see in a future manifesto?
Let us start with tuition fees. You don’t like the 2010 no fees, you don’t like the Labour alternative. If you had a blank sheet what would you do?
You criticise and insult but offer no solution. Are you intellectually incapable or just shy?
With respect to tuition fees I detect a real chip on your shoulder. I ask you for the fifth time, in the interest of openness, did you go to University?
Since when did Martin Lewis become the arbiter on all that is student finance?
Some of his assumptions have been called into question, and does he have a political agenda? Who knows…….
All in all this has done what Labour wanted…..force the Lib Dems back onto the field discussing tuition fees
@malc
“The maximum fees will be reduced from £9,000 to £6,000 for everyone. All graduates – regardless of their income – will have less debt when they finish university.”
But it’s not “debt” in the normal sense of the word. It’s a “notional debt” or a “conditional debt”. Another way of putting it is to say that it is merely the basis for the lifetime cap on Graduate Contributions (as I think someone on LDV sensibly renamed them).
Paul has given an excellent response, and I’d add another thought for you:
My elder son is due to graduate this summer. Are you suggesting he will graduate with a “Higher Rate Tax Debt” of £65,000? Someone who ends up earning a good salary will be liable for Higher Rate income tax at 40%, i.e. 20% extra on top of the Basic Rate. So, if my son were to end up paying Higher Rate tax for (say) 25 years, on an average salary for those years of (say) £55,000 pa, he would be due to pay a total of £65,000 in what we are now going to call “Higher Rate Tax Debt Repayments”.
Is that how you would see it? Of course not! This “Higher Rate Tax Debt” is only a notional or conditional debt. If you don’t get above a salary of £42,000 pa you don’t have to make any “Higher Rate Tax Debt Repayments” at all. If you get to retirement and you haven’t paid back all the £65,000 the balance is written off. If you are unfortunate enought to die early, the “HRT Debt” dies with you and isn’t claimable against your estate.
So, please tell me in what way that is any different to what you Student Loan Debt?
@Martin That Miliband isn’t the shrewdest political operator on the block isn’t exactly news, is it? In fact I’m glad he isn’t as politically smooth as, say, Tony Blair.
As for Miliband as PM vs Cameron as PM, the only scenario in which I prefer Cameron is one where he is in coalition with us, and even that is putting country before party!
It is always possible that Miliband will turn out to be a better PM than Leader of the Opposition. Lets face it, that wouldn’t be very difficult!
Simon Shaw
“But it’s not “debt” in the normal sense of the word. It’s a “notional debt” or a “conditional debt”.”
When a graduate applies for a mortgage they will find that it is anything but notional.
Lib Dems – the party of private landlords.
@Simon Shaw
The difference between taxes payable above a certain level of income and debt repayable above a certain level of income is that the debt is finite. If your son earns several billion pounds, his student loan will be paid off, but he’ll still have to pay taxes, no matter how much tax he has already paid.
stuart moran
“Since when did Martin Lewis become the arbiter on all that is student finance?
Some of his assumptions have been called into question, and does he have a political agenda? Who knows…….”
Well, he IS on the telly a lot, so I guess he must know more than anybody else about financial matters… at least that’s what Paul and Simon seem to assume.
Simon has been gleefully misrepresenting Lewis for years. Lewis has stated that he did not support the 2012 reforms, but you wouldn’t get that impression from reading Simon’s endless citations.
Lewis’ actual position on the Labour proposals is vague and inconsistent. He’s said he supports certain aspects of it, and has given mixed messages about whether the fee cut itself is a good idea (regardless of his characteristic OTT rhetoric quoted by the OP). Just two weeks ago, he told an audience at the LSE that he was “torn” on the idea as he could see that it had “merit”.
He’s called the Labour scheme “financially illiterate”, but on his website he uses exactly the same words to describe the Tory/Lib Dem scheme. It’s not at all clear which system (if any) he thinks is more financially illiterate than the other – but in an attempt to clear this up, I’ve tweeted him the question, and will let you know if I get a reply (unlikely as I’m sure he gets piles of tweets).
@Tsar Nicholas
“Simon Shaw – ‘But it’s not “debt” in the normal sense of the word. It’s a “notional debt” or a “conditional debt”.’
When a graduate applies for a mortgage they will find that it is anything but notional.”
I’m fairly certain you’re wrong. When a graduate in the future applies for a mortgage the fact that they, on a salary of (say) £30,000pa, will have an outgoing of £810pa in Graduate Contributions WILL be taken into account. However the “notional debt” won’t be taken into account.
Put another way, a non-graduate on £29,000 pa and a graduate on £30,000 pa would be treated (all other things being equal) as being able to afford the same mortgage – because the non-graduate has £810 pa less of outgoings.
(As I say, I am fairly certain that is the case, but if anyone has greater knowledge of mortgage lending than I have I’d be interested to hear).
@Stuart
>i>”“Since when did Martin Lewis become the arbiter on all that is student finance?
Some of his assumptions have been called into question, and does he have a political agenda? Who knows…….”
Well, he IS on the telly a lot, so I guess he must know more than anybody else about financial matters… at least that’s what Paul and Simon seem to assume.”
You’ve spotted it! My understanding is that he is on TV an awful lot, particularly daytime TV, and who is it who supposedly watches a lot of that????
“Simon has been gleefully misrepresenting Lewis for years. Lewis has stated that he did not support the 2012 reforms, but you wouldn’t get that impression from reading Simon’s endless citations.
If you are going to say I have been representing somebody, could I ask you to produce evidence (or withdraw the comment)?
I totally accept what Martin Lewis said about the 2012 changes. Do you similarly accept what he says about Labour’s proposals?
@Simon
Constantly quoting somebody in the context of defending a system which he has said clearly he does not support, is misrepresentation pure and simple.
@Stuart
“Constantly quoting somebody in the context of defending a system which he has said clearly he does not support, is misrepresentation pure and simple.”
That’s not good enough. Where did I ever say that Martin Lewis supports or defends the 2012 system, or where did I ever quote him in the context of defending that system?
I said I totally accept what Martin Lewis said about the 2012 changes. Now you need to state whether you similarly accept what he says about Labour’s proposals. It’s a Yes or No question.
Simon, here’s the thing, The more you quote people back and try to twist what they say in a vain attempt make the support your views the more alienating it becomes. Do you actually want anyone to vote Lib Dem and if you do, do think trying to cow them into submission is a good way of going about it.? I’m sorry but I did not vote Lib Dem to do things like triple tuition fees and nothing is going to persuade me that it was good for students, the country or the Lib Dems. All I’m seeing here is an excessive loyalty to a Conservative Party policy that I did not vote for and is plainly a vote loser. As other people have pointed out Coalition loyalists are digging themselves into an ever deeper hole that sees them going from a policy of getting rid of tuition fees, to saying that they will not exceed £6000 to now defending £9000! Honestly it beggars belief.
@Glenn
“Simon, here’s the thing, The more you quote people back and try to twist what they say in a vain attempt make the support your views the more alienating it becomes. Do you actually want anyone to vote Lib Dem and if you do, do think trying to cow them into submission is a good way of going about it.?”
I think you misunderstand to whom my remarks are really addressed. They are 95% NOT addressed to the people to whose comments I am responding, I am actually addressing other Lib Dems.
You asked a question and the truthful answer is that no, I don’t want anyone to vote Lib Dem as a result of what I or anyone says here on Lib Dem Voice. I strongly believe that virtually all the posters who come on here and whose comments I have responded to have absolutely no intention of voting Lib Dem in 2015, whatever I or anyone else says or doesn’t say.
My really worry is that Lib Dem members and activists may be cowed into thinking that those anti-Lib Dem sentiments are widespread and that there is no response that can be made. So my comments are 95% for the benefit of those Lib Dem members and other activists who might read them. They might not agree with all that I say but at least a pro-Lib Dem, anti-Labour (in this case) message has been floated.
It happens that I genuinely believe that Labour, three or four weeks down the line, will be seen to have advanced a dishonest and fairly silly proposal in relation to Student Finance and I see LDV as a good arena in which Labour-loyalists can try and defend it and people like me can test their arguments.
Incidentally, I’m not sure in what way I “try to twist what people say”. If you have any specific instances I’m happy to reflect on them.
@Simon Shaw. I really hope you’re not making a self-fulfilling prophecy. I at any rate have more than zero intention of voting Liberal Democrat in May.
@Paul Walter (1st Mar ’15 – 8:29am) – I agree, it seems that many don’t understand the tuition fee’s, student loans and repayment system.
The only time the system that can be said to be a disincentive, is when under 18’s are waking up to university and starting to discover they are expected to start paying for stuff. Once it is explained how they will be paying for the seemingly vast tuition fee’s and maintenance costs, namely by taking out Student loans (and applying for sponsorships, scholarships and grants: parents not been to university, single parent family, living in a deprived area), which only become payable if they satisfy the earnings criteria, it largely becomes a non-issue. Obviously, once they are working pep talks are sometimes needed because they suddenly see all the deductions: PAYE, NI, Student Loan. At which point a short introduction to the tax system is appropriate…
I would be interested to hear about anyone who took out a student loan since 2004, and is now on a low income who is materially worst off because they have an outstanding student loan…
All that has happened is that the public has been reminded of our cock up over Tuition Fees in 2010 and 2011, it was not the fact that fees were increased but that we went from one extreme position to the complete opposite overnight. It was catastrophe from which we have never recovered. The only chance to reduce that problem was a leadership change and we shirked that as well.
Martin Lewis was appointed by the Government to educate student about student loans. His message to them: Don’t worry about it. It is not a debt. Isn’t this mis-selling? (see his other website for advice on this).
Given a choice of borrowing £6,000 a year or £9,000 a year I think it is obvious that students would borrow £6,000. Labour might be accused of being financially illiterate, but those who support higher fees are not thinking about all the issues. Young people do not understand about debt. They will have had no experience of debt. Their parents may be pushing them to go to university. Their schools WILL be pushing them to go to university, and now we have Martin Lewis, Head of the Government’s Taskforce (responsible for educating students about loans) telling them it is not a debt. Those who have experienced debt will know that it generates a lot of stress. It is a strong risk factor for Mental ill Health. Half of people in debt have a mental disorder. It can have diverse and long term effects on the student, their family and society. Telling students it is not a debt is a deception – and immoral, in my view, and tantamount to mis-selling.
And why should the UK have the most expensive higher education system in the world? Come on LibDems – stick to your principles. Promise to scrap tuition fees and go a step further and promise to write off the student loan book. Then I will vote for you.
(Incidentally, well done LibDems for having a public forum and not just a secret one).