For every vote and every candidate up and down the country that signed the pledge on behalf of the National Union of Students, may I please put this to you – at the Emergency Conference on Sunday, oppose the provision in the coalition agreement which prevents us from voting on the outcome of the Lord Browne review on Higher Education Fees.
As a Party we have consistently been the only party to talk about fees, let alone come up with a costed policy for replacement of the present system where many graduates leave with thousands of pounds of debt. Students up and down the country have respected us for this amongst some of our other key stands against the Iraq War, the protection of our civil liberties and action to slow down the rate of Climate Change – just to name a few. We cannot abandon this front line policy and the students that came out in droves to support us last week.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with scrapping tuition fees, the silencing and censoring of our MP’s on the future of Higher Education funding is both an illiberal position for us to take and completely irresponsible. Have students or the wider party ever trusted Labour or the Conservatives over Higher Education and our lost generation? Can we honestly expect Labour, the party that introduced tuition fees and top-up fees against its own manifesto pledges (do we want to encourage parallels?) and announced £900m of university cuts only recently, to defend students from lifting the cap and perhaps doubling the fees we pay? Perhaps I guess if they wish to play this for tactical points.
Many MPs and Parliamentary candidates signed agreements to oppose as part of the NUS Vote For Students Campaign, and only yesterday I spoke to NUS President Aaron Porter urging him to continue to pressure our Parliamentary Party and the Conservatives to change this part of the coalition agreement.
So please for the sake of students everywhere that are counting on this, on Sunday stand firm on our policy on tuition fees.
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28 Comments
The terms of the agreement cannot be amended by vote of conference I understand. The enabling resolution can be amended to include various statements I believe. Someone from conference commitee could perhaps clarify.
There’s no point in anyone calling for a renegotiation of the agreement. That’s not going to happen.
True edis we cannot change the agreement, but we can amend the motion to supporting the agreement at Conference. There will be an amendment raised by Liberal Youth on this issue, and Anthony I disagree, these are only the foundations for the coalition being agreed.
Further talks will ensue on other issues between negotiating teams from ourselves and the Conservatives, as yet this is only a draft. We must raise our reservations now about what has already been drafted to take to the table.
May I point out, I wish I’d written this at 1:50pm but sadly it was somewhere around 4am 😛
I’m afraid this is one of the areas where I strongly disagree with Lib Dem policy. Ireland currently operates a ‘free fees’ structure where the government pays the costs of one’s first University degree, whether this be a BA or an MD. In practice it has done absolutely nothing to encourage students from economically deprived backgrounds to enter University and has been effectively a massive subsidy for middle and upper class students (such as myself) who could afford to pay fees. The money would be better spent on improving Universities themselves, offering scholarships and ‘leg-up’ programmes to potential students from deprived backgrounds. In short, those who can pay should, those who can’t should be helped.
I disagree, Mark, and not just because (like Daragh) I disagree with the Lib Dem’s policy on this in principle. Foregoing the argument about whether tuition fees should be subsidised or not, we are now in coaltion. We have made compromises. This was one of them.
While I understand that individual members may feel that particular policies should have been protected come-what-may, the fact is that we (and our coalition partners) have had to give up on cherished policies to get a deal that was acceptable and workable. We agreed to abstain if the government decided to raise tuition fees; the Tories have accepted an increase in the personal allowance threshold to £10,000. (This is not to suggest that that was a binary quid pro quo; just to demonstrate that each party has had to back down in an area).
Furthermore, at a time when we are going to have to slash billions from the budgets for schools, roads, hospitals (if we’re honest) and – yes – universities, it would be pretty hard to argue that the best use of scarce resources is to subsidise the personal career advancement of people who will earn above average salaries for the rest of their lives.
To actually take money out of public services to scrap tuition fees would undermine something more than the pledge by many MPs to scrap tuition fees. It would completely blow away the fundamental principle underlying the Liberal Democrat manifesto: that of fairness.
Now is exactly the time to abandon our opposition to tuition fees.
Generally in agreement with Daragh and Tom here. A combination of means tested grants that cover a substantial chunk of the costs and fees are probably the best option, in my opinion. The only problem is ensuring that the middle classes are not squeezed unfairly by this kind of thing.
For me it boils down to the fact that all of our candidates signed a pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees. If they break that promise then they will lose a great deal of my respect. It’s not something that will make me desert the party but it is something that will make me doubt its promises in future.
When I did campaigning in the election I told dozens of people about our MPs and PPCs having signed the pledge whereas only 12 tories had. If they break that promise then how can I go back to them with a straight face next time when I tell them about our integrity?
This was actually precisely what I didn’t want this to come across as (the editor misunderstood my viewpoint, I’m actually relatively in favour of a graduate tax), I completely understand that policy must be subsided in a coalition.
However, we must not compromise our right to oppose in Parliament, there are people that voted for us based on the pledges their PPC’s signed some of which became MP’s.
We have directly elected representatives in the Commons who must respond to these commitments by voting as they have pledged, the Party should not have put this clause whether they meant to disregard it or not into a public coalition agreement.
I think you’ve misunderstood what it does, the Lib Dem’s do have a chance to speak out on it
The wording states that if the government policy introduced after the report has been recieved and considered is such that it is untemable to the Lib Dem’s they may abstain from voting.
Once the report is recieved the government will review it and between themselves look at and decide the action that they will take on it. This is when the Lib Dem MP’s will be able to speak in support of it, and try to influence the policy so that it responds favourably (assuming that this makes sense given Lib Dem principles… we don’t know what the report will say yet).
If after this, the Lib Dems, as a minority in this coalition cannot sway the decision enough then they may abstain from voting for the proposed policy without jeopordising the coalition agreement.
This clause is actually sensible as it means that the Lib Dem’s do not put themselves in a position where they have to support a motion from their own government coalition that they disagree with.
They are still able to support the report, and being in the Government have more chance to influence policy than they otherwise would have done.
I urge you not to try and change this as it would put the Lib Dem’s n the position of having no alterative than to support the governments policy if it turns out to be in opposition to their views on student fees.
Words I’d like to see banned now includes “illiberal” (previously “progressive” and “national interest” and “troll”).
I’m unclear. Surely the lost generation cannot include people who’ve acquired a university degree and are generally receiving a reasonable-to-high salary? I would reserve this term for urban poor with basic-if-any literary and numeracy skills.
I think fees are bad. I actually don’t think a society where 50% of people go to university is a very rounded society – trust me, having paid top-up fees to go to uni myself, the fees weren’t worth it but neither do I now think it’s worth my taxes to subsidise a lot of stupid courses.
I do think less people should be going to university – there is absolutely no way that we as a society could afford to pay for half the country going to university through taxes.
The solution must be to reduce university numbers – and encourage people to consider working at 16 or doing some kind of vocational stuff. I earn less than 20k, despite having got a degree. Had I started working at 16 I could’ve worked my way up some kind of chain, earned a lot more by now. And uni was mostly a lot of fun, quite a waste of time and not all of it was worth public subsidy.
Also – 3 years is too long! The 1st year is invariably spent dossing around (even if it’s on your student loan or overdraft, you don’t have to pay it off instantly so it’s not an issue to your average student!), as is the 2nd year, and you buckle down in the 3rd year. Cut it to two years – even better yet, make most courses part time so people need to find part time jobs whilst studying. Then it pays for itself.
@Alex: Abstaining would help push increasing the cap and fees through, the numbers make it exceedingly difficult for any opposition to a Conservative whipped agreement with Browne’s report and the possibility Labour will back them (although I reckon they’d be likely to flip-flop). Lord Browne already said before being asked to commission the report that he would at minimum like to see fees increase four fold for students. This would be blatant neglect of many of our MP’s promise to vote against an increase in fees and would shun students.
@Keehar: The ‘and the lost generation’ indicates the wider problem of those that have fallen off the exam-led curriculum ladder and have been failed by a mechanical farming process that puts people like some of my friends from secondary school from having aspirations to be lawyers, getting all the way up to sixth form, to signing on the dole and young people turning to crime in an area which if I must say so myself, is rather well off back home. They and many others have been failed by Labour and the Conservatives that introduced the exam-led system and the degrees students now come out with are pretty redundant for what they actually give you.
Noticing that I acted like there was never an exam led system, but we need to move on from this… we have high youth unemployment; studies that suggest that each person has different learning methods that they are more suited to; one exam failed and you can be consigned to the scrap heap (e.g. my entire education in foreign languages going from an A to being part of a herding project which meant if I couldn’t grasp Spanish and French in alternate weeks within several months that I wasn’t a ‘better student’ and there was no point paying attention to my learning).
Mark, pardon? there has been an “exam-led system” at British universities for almost 200 years. You might as well blame the Whigs.
Coming up through school, I don’t think I met a kid who wanted to be a lawyer until 16 or 17 (and even then, they were weird). Most wanted to be racing drivers or astronauts or firemen (and, that was just the girls, boom boom).
If a child did have ideas for scholastic success, but failed in the study, that’s nothing to do with tuition fees. Such loans do not require repayment immediately, besides.
I know cleaners and shelf-stackers and bar-staff. Trust me, they don’t think they’re lucky not to be living it up at uni in return for debts which don’t have to be repaid for years.
The point on this I’m trying but failing to get at is the over-testing and the rigidness of the curriculum in adapting to individual learning styles of students and leaving students behind when they fail tests or exams.
I’ve also been a shelf-stacker/retail work and work bars and clean kitchens atm, and I don’t feel that you should have to go through University just to get a decent job as a graduate. Depends where you live, I do know a few friends who left Sixth Form with good jobs in University Libraries for instance, but most that don’t go to University find it more difficult than those we worry about atm who can’t get jobs after coming out of University with a degree.
But, what does this have to do with tuition fees?
If you are doing for the love of knowledge, then you should be prepared to for the financial cost. Or study via Open University.
Jude Fawley is spinning in his grave as I type.
Tough, banning words is illiberal. It’s a simple question: how do you deal with “bad speech”? The illiberal answer is to ban it; the liberal answer is “more speech”. In a liberal society, your right to be a troll is countered by the right of others to point out that you are trolling.
(In a society where bad words are banned, which includes a significant number of internet forums, we start with the trolls)
I’ve just heard a rhetorician cry.
In a free debating hall, the right to call someone a troll is accompanied by the right of the person being called a troll to observe that dissent is not necessarily malicious.
Which is not being denied, although you don’t seem to be very convincing at it.
Andrew, did you seriously think I wanted certain words banned?
I must admit that this is the one area I am concerned about in the coalition agreement as abolishing tuition fees is something I care deeply about.. If the Browne review comes out with a recommendation to substantially increase the fees level are Lib Dems really going to just sit on their hands?
“Anthony I disagree, these are only the foundations for the coalition being agreed.”
They may only be the foundations, but I’m sure they’re not up for further negotiation in the foreseeable future. To be honest I think you should be more worried about the deficit reduction measures, which weren’t in anyone’s manifesto, and which the Tories as the larger partner will have the whip hand on. I rather doubt any more permissions for the Lib Dems to abstain on unpopular measures will be forthcoming.
If the best that was put into the coalition agreement was a right to abstain then frankly the chances of a rearguard action later on are slim ( and if one happened then we would have to give something else up ). Tom Papworth is quite right. There is no money for anything, we’ll be cutting deeply into things that people care about and coalition is about compromise.
I welcome the article because at a psychodynamic level it moves the coalition discussion along. The fact we are clearly abandoning the fees policy is an inevitable consequence of the “realities of government”. Back the Coalition, don’t back the Coalition but the idea you can sit in government in this parliament of all parliaments and not have a fundamental shift in party policy is for the birds. The sooner this sinks in the sooner we’ll come to terms with the new arrangement or walk out.
So we’re allowed a vote on nuclear power – even though it’s relatively uncontroversial – but not one on tuition fees? Which would cost (to reverse) no more than £600mn in the first year, compared to the £2bn+ required if a nuclear power plant under construction decides that it actually needs public subsidy after all.
The party and Liberal Youth have spent the entire year, longer even, trying very hard to get students to trust us. For us not to stand up about this now — when the party leadership has been defeated by members and the FE on it 3 times in the last 2 years — we will lose the votes in university towns that we have left.
The proposed Liberal Youth amendment to Keep the Cap at around £3500 a year can be read at http://www.tuitionfees.org.uk . It is being proposed by our chair Alan Belmore and summated by Julian Huppert MP (Cambridge), and makes clear that like nuclear power, such a vote would not be seen as one of confidence in the coalition. We recognise that negotiation on the finer points would be required afterwards with the Conservatives, but refute the claims that it would require a renegotiation of the agreement.
Of course there may be a value in the party reaffirming its own policies, even if there is no chance of them becoming government policy. After all, that’s the situation it has been in for the last 70 years!
What a screamer for increase in tuition fees all over UK especially England. Pardon me,a paltry 40% increase or more as will be determined independently by universities is indeed a cause of worry? “Families will not be able to afford sending their wards to universities”. ” It will only be for the privilaged and rich few”. Of course graduate tax even if higher is a means where students, forgive me most citizens run away debt burden-if they will at all pay at the end of the 60 yrs!.
Whatever the tantrums of political jigsaw or nationalistic identity of a preserved educational system or better social welfare enterprise, she can not lie on her own.A fact,arguably how bitter.
How bet much respect and value should be given to “run away students” from supposed “poor countries” especially third world africa who could afford to pay international tuition fees ranging from 10,000 – 20,000 pounds completely without any state grants or scholarships excluding welfare and accomodation for over a year!.No minimum wage could raise that.People think!.
Whats the way forward? Tuition fees could be increased to 15 – 20% with government providing funds to the university commision/universities for academic programmes that will generate financial capital for the universities in partnership with the private sectors that equip them better.
Lets hope the changes for the term will see a new and dynamic educational sector.Much strain is taken and absorbed,all for the economic down turn.It will not be long before we know whether it was alright after all.Probably,its the best at the moment.