The Telegraph’s Jonathan Isaby and Iain Dale point to an interview Lib Dem MP Steve Williams gave to the Times Educational Supplement a few days ago.
In it, the Lib Dem Shadow Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills was asked about the party’s commitment to abolishing tuition fees. The TES reports:
Stephen Williams, Lib Dem Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, said that the policy was not sustainable… Nick Clegg, the leader of the party, had come to this conclusion after “long internal discussions”.
The magazine also reports that Cambridge MP and Shadow Solicitor General David Howarth has vowed to oppose such moves:
“I am happy to look at the issue again but the issue of free education is such an important one for the party that I cannot see the party conference accepting any move away from it. It would be wrong to do so,” he said.
I would tend to agree with Howarth’s prediction of conference rejecting such a proposal. But then I also expected the Make It Happen tax amendment to be carried clearly, so it shows what I know.
Unless the TES is exaggerating Steve Williams’ comments, it seems that the party leadership are preparing to take another controversial policy issue to conference.
Likely to be obscured by that wrangle are Williams’s genuinely interesting ideas about how part-time students have been forgotten. While I would strongly oppose dropping the party’s pledge on tuition fees, I hope his worthy interest in that issue gets debated and considered too.
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58 Comments
Surprise surprise, “student friendly” Stephen Williams in yet another situation that is less than favourable to students.
i don’t think there was ever any question of the tax amendment being accepted- the 50p rate was a far bigger challenge.
but fees?!? they’re not getting that through conference. i’m not sure clegg would want to kiss goodbye to a swathe of seats either. they’ll find the money rather than lose horrificly on the conference floor.
Clegg has to nail this one straight away – this has to be kept – it will make us distinct in an an ever muddled middle ground – what about scrapping nuclear deterrent to pay for it ? –
I’m afraid it is a policy that becomes increasingly difficult to maintain as time goes on, however desirable it might be. As the number of graduates who come out of University with debts grows and it becomes just a part of the furniture for the people filling in their UCAS forms, the issue changes.
The problem is that all those who have paid fees are a growing constituency of people who would now be adverse to the abolition of fees unless someone was going to pay off theirs. ‘Well I’ve got debts of £20,000, so why shouldn’t they’ could become a new doorstep mantra. And this group is growing like topsy.
The principle of free education is a fine one. But David should remember that not all Universities are endowed like his and an abolition of tuition fees now that Universities have adjusted to them would be very difficult.
The LDs’ need to rethink the whole issue. We need to reverse the latest government stupidity that penalises adults with degrees from going back to university to retrain later in life.
We need to look at fees so that, frankly, those from state schools and from lower income families don’t pay, or perhaps EVEN HAVE A GOVERNMENT PAID PREMIUM for the universities which might finally mean that Oxford, Cambridge et al started taking a reasonable proportion of children from state schools… Look at how hard our unversities now work to attract foreign students because they pay higher fees. Let’s see that effort devoted to recruiting UK students from groups that do not normally have good access to the system, by giving the universites, say, a £2000 a year bonus when they recruit them – and an additional prize of £4000 when they graduate. That, David, would do more to correct educational inequalities than a global abolition of fees.
But I really suspect by the time the LD’s can reach power the protests of the interest groups involved would no longer allow us to simply abolish fees.
Nick Clegg and Stephen Williams are right to think that we need to look at this again.
There was one student who spoke out against the controversial amendment last Monday on the tax debate. She spoke about the hardship that students face. Although I admired her courage to speak at such a big debate, her position did not make sense. Students do not pay taxes – unless they do a job at the same time. And if we are tightening our belt, then obviously we cannot keep to our committments that both leadership candidates made just 9 moths ago.
I was disappointed that the debate ignored the overall economic context we are in, as you will find in the Sunday Times today;
http://tinyurl.com/3f2xys
geoffrey,
i think the point was that when students leave university their marginal tax rates are much higher due to loan repayments and often starting jobs are not very well paid. those of us who are students can see very well what lies in wait for us when we leave.
Yes, the 6% repayment over £15,000 increases marginal tax rates; but aren’t we now committed to reducing the standard rate of tax by 4p or more?
Find myself agreeing with Martin Land.
Something needs to be done to nurture higher education, particularly for those from lower-income backgrounds, but a simple reversion to the pre-(whatever date it was) policy is not necessarily the answer.
What’s needed is something new and progressive. But don’t ask me what it should be – education is not my field!!
This is/was a policy in need of revision. It felt fair, but it would have ended up tending to make the relatively well-off a bit better-off and the relatively worse off a bit poorer.
We can do better than that.
My problem with tuition fees is that people have to commit themselves to paying up front with the only certainty being massive debt.
As someone who benefited from ‘free’ higher education I would have no problem paying a bit more tax now that I can afford too to pay for the next generation having the same opportunity.
I certainly know that I could never have chosen to go to University if it meant clocking up the level of debt students face nowadays.
One further point – once people are eighteen I don’t believe the level of funding they receive should be dependent on their parents’ income.
Rochdale Cowboy said “Clegg has to nail this one straight away”, the problem is Nick is most likely a of this sort of idiocy.
Stephen Williams is one of only two MPs whco switched from Huhne to Clegg in the 2006/7 Leadership elections (Greg Mulholland was the other). Why did Stephen swtitch? Well it may have been that, like many MPs. he thought (wrongly) that Clegg would win by a landslide. More likely though, he thought Clegg might back a ‘Tory turn’ on tuition fees, whereas Huhne made it clear in hustings that he supported the party’s current policy.
Someone close to the FPC told me the new policy was actually quite good, but the probelem is it takes five minutes to explain. Those of us who campaign rather than pontificate for the party know you haven’t got that much time on a doorstep.
We have a simple policy that poeple can understand it, lets not throw it away. Cardiff Central, Leeds NE, Machester Withington, Portsmouth South, Cambridge etc. all have a big student vote. Bristol West loses a chunk of it in the boundary revision, so perhaps Stephen Williams doesn’t care any more, but lets get real.
The scrap tuition fees policy is a winner for us in a lot of seats we hold or hope to gain, now is not the time to dump it.
“the problem is Nick is most likely a of this sort of idiocy.”
You’re short of a noun.
Euen,
“Someone close to the FPC told me the new policy was actually quite good, but the probelem is it takes five minutes to explain. Those of us who campaign rather than pontificate for the party know you haven’t got that much time on a doorstep.”
Do we make too much of this doorstep test? I feel no motivation to campaign for a policy that I think is second-best. Isn’t getting people like me to knock on more doors at least as important as how quickly a policy can be explained? Not to mention having the right policies?
“You’re short of a noun.”
An opportunity for a LDV poll, perhaps?
I’m also worried by the “doorstep” test. It seemed the only reason given to keep our 50% top-rate of tax: it was symbolic.
Our aim should be to find good ways to communicate good policies, not select policies that are easy to communicate.
For me, the reasons against university fees are those laid out by Neil. I didn’t pay fees because my parents didn’t earn enough, but I resent anyone’s post-18 educational choices being determined by their parents’ wallets.
@Euen from UWE, I think you mean Leeds NW not Leeds NE(I should know i live in the consituency)
Conference should make sure this doesn’t happen. We currently have a fair, clear and easy to understand policy: Free education for all. Abandoning this policy would IMHO be stupid
Please tell me I am dreaming while reading this thread.
So we throw away that tranche of seats we won last time from Labour in inner-city/student areas?
And condemn all future students to the nightmare that former studnets now find themselves in over their repayments. It is this which is not sustainable.
However it is logical if seen as part of the strategy of the powers that be in this party to repudiate every policy that anyone associates with us!
Tony Greaves
Tony, shouldn’t you be restricting your views to the members-only forum?
I have spent a lot of time over the last 10 or more years on this policy area while Labour have been busy burning manifesto commitments.
Neil and others have laid down the test, which I have spent time studying and researching: fees represent a psychological barrier to people from some backgrounds from entering higher education.
Stephen Williams has some very good ideas about FE and part-time students – but he has to come up with a policy paper proposal that is acceptable in the round. And if he is spinning rather than working on the policy (which has not even entered the start of the process), that is really rather shameful.
I have to say I agree with Martin and Neil on this one.
I was all for free university education for all until I started mentoring a teenage boy from a under-proveledged and vulnerable background, where nobody worked and certainly nobody had ever been to University before.
The fact is that a good University funding policy should take account fo the very poorest, like my mentee, to make sure they don’t have to pay fees. But the problem was that he wasn’t going to benefit from our no fees policy because he was being educated in a school under special measures and nobody had ever suggested that he might have worthwhile aspirations to go into higher education (until I cam along, that is).
Free university education for all did nothing to improve the number of people from pooer or disadvantged backgrounds going to University. All it did was give a tax break to the hoards of middle class families who would stop at nothing (including fees) to get their kids to University.
I am concerned about the up front debt and would prefer some sort of graduate tax (which I would be happy to pay) to reflect the fact that the average graduate earns around £400k over their lifetime than their peers who stopped their education at 18.
I also think the burseries and subsidies to the very poorest who might be put off by up front debt be improved. It would also break the link between students and their parents income.
The earlier the money is spent on children the better. The differences start at about 18 months and I would rather put money into early years provision at 18 months than subsidies people like me, who would have gone to Univeristy whether I was charged fees or not. I don’t need low paid, tax payers to subsidise my abilty to earn more than them.
Free higher education for all is a nice idea but not at the expense of early years education.
A free university education also did nothing for my typing, spelling and proof reading…..clearly!
Although it’s always healthy to review our policies from time to time and discuss the merits of each one, I do hope that this is one we will not drop.
Aside from the political impact of dropping it (which may, as Martin suggests, diminish as more people graduate having experienced paying fees), there are in my mind two main considerations: principle and practicalities.
In the principle column*: access to higher education is a good thing for individuals, society and our culture; we want the brightest and best to be able to take advantage of what’s on offer; the balance of payment and reward should be fair; and there should be ‘intergenerational justice’ (the problem of the baby-boomers pulling up the free education ladder after they’ve benefited from it).
My view is that all these are still valid and that therefore we should continue to oppose tuition fees for HE.
On the practical side*: how to get the brightest and best into HE and not just the less talented but better resourced; who pays and how; how to get more money into HE full stop; and how to maintain quality of the HE product.
As Jo demonstrates, there is something wrong about the current system because clearly many children with ability and potential are not getting into universities, even though the overall numbers have increased. In addition, there are growing reports questioning the value of degrees to graduates in the job market.
I don’t think these practical issues point to the fee structure necessarily being the problem, however. That is, we don’t need to abandon our principled opposition to fees, but we do need to offer solutions to the practical issues that are getting in the way of good candidates from poor backgrounds** applying into HE.
If it’s a question of ‘place-blocking’ by better resourced** but less able applicants from middle class families, then let’s address that. Should admission standards be tougher? Should government funding be linked to the [valued added] results of the students applying? Should there be some sort of ‘difficulty’ factor included in the results students get? There could be lots of ways to solve this (and would be an answer to the charge that scrapping tuition fees would only subsidises the middle classes – a suggestion that should spur us to solve the underlying problem and not the symptom, surely).
In terms of knowledge, ambition and access, clearly the access programmes currently running have not been a total success. Why this the case, I don’t know, but there are a whole host of issues related to early years and support for families where we’re proposing a set of early interventions and this looks like another area that would benefit.
* – these are my lists, and not likely to be exclusive
** – I mean resources in the broadest sense (money, ambition, support, peer groups etc)
Partly because of the motion we passed at conference, but mostly because of the appalling state of the public finances – which is going to get worse – I think it will be hard to meet any of our spending committments.
Student finance will be the first committment to be dropped I am sure, whatever the rights and wrongs.
I would prefer instead scrap and not replace Trident. Who knows, maybe we will drop both?
“I would prefer instead scrap and not replace Trident.”
This is a beautiful moment, Geoffrey – we appear to have found a point of agreement!
“The problem is that all those who have paid fees are a growing constituency of people who would now be adverse to the abolition of fees unless someone was going to pay off theirs.”
I paid fees. I don’t want my child to go through the hell of paying for an education which will not get her a better paid job at the end of it because every bugger else has got a degree too. The problem here is that far too many people are going to university. If this were solved, fees would not be an issue.
Jo, your mentee will find that his degree is not worth a tinker’s cuss unless he has a raft of other experience and contacts to go along with it. Obviously you can help him in this regard – but not every child can be mentored by you.
I agree with Jo, Martin et al. It is also a question of what we could also be spending that money on:
http://explore.georgetown.edu/documents/34494/?PageTemplateID=11
“The problem here is that far too many people are going to university.”
Interesting that you should say that. I was assuming I was in a minority of one in thinking it.
@Jo Christie-Smith, if graduates earn £400k more in their lifetime than non graduates then they would pay far more extra in tax then their university education cost. So no need for a graduate tax, the taxation system already takes account of the effect of earning more.
That graduates earn more canard also only applies to people who graduated back in the time when only 10% of people went to uni. The graduate premium is falling, even for those of us who actually get a graduate level job: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=403486§ioncode=26
““The problem here is that far too many people are going to university.”
Interesting that you should say that. I was assuming I was in a minority of one in thinking it.”
And there going down a very expensive way of getting an education (eg living away from home, courses taking 3 years which could fit into 2)
The problem is that we’ve taken a system where 10% of people went to University and tried to fund it in the same way for 50% of people to go. That just won’t add up.
Jo, why have a graduate tax, rather than simply income tax? Is is right that a friend of mine, who is a graduate nurse, now a Sister in the NHS, should pay a higher rate of tax than my plumber?
Even when graduates do earn more than non-graduates, much of this difference is because they were more talented to begin with. It would be wrong to attribute the whole difference to the education.
This does suggest that sending as many people to university as possible hoping to boost earnings and the economy is misguided. Of course there are other reasons for going to university, and I wouldn’t begrudge anybody the rite of passage or the chance to learn something interesting.
But it should perhaps be asked what priority this deserves compared to other demands for spending. And perhaps in many cases a 1 or 2 year course would be a sufficient rite of passage, and good enough for many careers.
This is a debate that is absolutely roaring behind the scenes at the moment and those who assume Nick is entirely in favour might just find themselves getting a shock. He’s got more of a campaigning ear than you might guess!
There will, I understand, be a motion put to conference in the Spring which we’ll all get our chance to throw rocks at if we want.
At the moment the more worrying thing is that Stephen is going out into the public domain talking about this and doing all kinds of damage to our support among students before it has even been adopted and before the Party has a chance to figure out how, if the policy IS changed, we are going to present it and campaign to keep student votes.
I think this may be more about Stephen Williams trying to remain in the chair of the working group. There are a number of people who saw the quality of the original paper, and want him removed.
Abolishing tuition fees is surely of benefit largely to the middle class, because they are largely the ones whose children are well-educated enough to go to university in the first place?
I think that we should be more radical and go further and offer a stakeholder grant of, say, £20k, to every person at age 18. They can spend this on a university education if they like – and they will probably be a lot more cautious in choosing their university and a lot more demanding as customers, which can only raise university standards. If they don’t like, perhaps the stake could be made available for them to spend on a deposit for a house, or as a vocational training account, or for other nominated “worthy” purposes. This way, those people who, through no fault of their own are not sufficiently well-educated to go to university, or who recognize that university would not be useful to them will also get a benefit.
(See “Redesigning Distribution” Ackerman & Alstott 2005)
I definitely agree that we have to look at how to make the education system fairer overall.
Those from disadvantaged backgrounds lose out at every level and this is something that liberals should seek to address.
I don’t agree that having free education does not or did not broaden higher education intake. Over the past 40 years the intake has broadened greatly and free entry and the grants system played a big part in this.
I was the first person in my (northern working class) family to go to University and I would never have done so without the Government paying for the education and providing a grant.
It is also not the case that the Graduate Earnings Premium has disappeared. It is still there and is large enough to mean that graduates will continue to pay substantially more tax over their lifetime than non-graduates for the foreseeable future. (And of course our current tax policies would enhance this effect)
Sara has a point. Why should a graduate nurse pay a higher tax rate than a (non-graduate) plumber? Well my personal preference would be that he/she wouldn’t. But if that is the cost of having no fees up front then I’ll settle for it.
“… people who, through no fault of their own are not sufficiently well-educated to go to university, or who recognize that university would not be useful to them …”
Or even, conceivably, not bright enough?
CCF – yes, indeed, that too. Why should people who “happen to be smart” – it’s just genetic luck – get a perk worth £15k+?
“Why should people who “happen to be smart” – it’s just genetic luck – get a perk worth £15k+?”
Why indeed, especially as they will probably benefit economically from their smartness in any case?
The problem is we’ve got into a situation where 40-50% of the population are expected to spend 3 years in full-time higher education – and to end up heavily in debt as a result – regardless of whether or not they want to, and regardless of whether it’s of any practical benefit to them.
I don’t know what the answer to that one is. I wish I did.
Stephen Williams should resign his seat of Bristol West as he won it on the basis of a lie. This is the call from Paul Smith, Labour’s candidate for the area, after Williams reversed his position on one of the two main issues he fought the seat on only three years ago, student tuition fees.
“Williams made his opposition to tuition fees a main plank of his election campaign in a seat with 20,000 university students. For the last year he has been writing plans for a u-turn. This blatant and cynical act shows that Williams is a hypocrite who is prepared to tell any lie and make any promise to win the student vote. It is unlikely that Williams would have won the seat from Labour’s Valerie Davey without this lie and he should do the honourable thing and stand down.” commented Smith.
In September this month Williams told the Times Higher Education Supplement that “the policy was unsustainable,” and that Nick Clegg, the leader of the party, had come to this conclusion after “long internal discussions”.
It has long been known that Mr Williams, MP for Bristol West and Lib Dem spokesperson for Higher Education has been planning to ditch the lib dems commitment on tuition fees and that the issue was not debated at the Lib Dem Party Conference in February because of fears it would cause a rebellion against the leadership.
Paul Smith added “This is the sort of behaviour which brings politics into disrepute and turns people off voting.”
Dear Bristol West Labour Party,
You bunch of fucking cretins. Labour promised not to bring in tuition fees, then they did. Labour promised not to bring in top-up fees, then they did. Labour promised electoral reform. It never happened. Who exactly is the bunch of lying scumbags here, you or us?
(expecting this comment and the previous one to be deleted, so flame on, baby)
“You bunch of fucking cretins. Labour promised not to bring in tuition fees, then they did. Labour promised not to bring in top-up fees, then they did. Labour promised electoral reform. It never happened. Who exactly is the bunch of lying scumbags here, you or us?”
Hmmm very interesting and measured:
Labour only brought in tuition fees after a general election when they said they would.
Electoral reform – brought in the new arrangements in Wales and Scotland
answer is you
“Labour only brought in tuition fees after a general election when they said they would.”
Must be my imagination then. I’m sure Labour brought in tuition fees in the 97-01 Parliament. In the 97 election Tony Blair said, “”Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education.”
Bristol West Labour Party, lying bunch of liars that they are, answer the fact that Labour promised not to bring in top-up fees and then did (in 2001), with a completely separate point (from 1997).
But then what could you expect from a lying bunch of liars?
This spat is very silly.
The pledge was made at the LAST general election, which we did not win.
Whilst in opposition we are entitled to change, just like any other party and present a new set of policies at the NEXT general election.
Had the Liberal Democrats won the last general election we would have implemented the policies we advocated then.
However we are now in a situation where our public finances are in such a terrible mess I really wander what any government can afford to realistically offer at the next general election.
But Mr Williams said it was no longer sustainable and the party wants to find more immediate ways to help students.
Options being considered include non-repayable grants, changes to the bursary system and offering more money in student loans.
“This is an absurd request,” he said.
“We are undergoing a policy review and the results won’t be decided until my party’s spring conference in Harrogate next March.
“We are looking to change the policy because circumstances have changed since 2005.
“Instead of students having to pay while they are studying, they pay afterwards and we now effectively have a graduate tax.
“That is broadly acceptable to people in a way that tuition fees policy, when first introduced, was not.”
Mr Williams said the policy was not crucial on a local level, as a lot of students in Bristol West either did not vote locally or not at all.
Let’s get some facts on the record. In the 2001 and 2005 elections in Bristol West I stated quite clearly that I opposed students paying fees. I stand by those comments completely and emphatically.
The policy review I am leading is to get a policy that is relevant for the 2010 general election, not a rehash of what we have said at previous ones. In April 2010 graduates will start paying a 9% flat rate tax on their earnings which will recover maintenance loans and a contribution to tuition. There are now (in 2008) very few undergraduates (just 4th years in fact) still paying up front fees. By this time next year there will be none.
I am all in favour of simple to understand policy messages, but they must be rooted in the reality of contemporary circumstances, not those of 5 years previously.
Finally, we did NOT promise free tuition for ALL students at the last election. Our promise was limited (and costed as such) to the full time undergraduates who paid up front fees. The message was clearly relevant and popular with them but meant NOTHING to full time students from poorer backgrounds who were exempt from fees (about a quarter of the total), or to part time undergraduates (about a fifth) or to the many adult learners following a non degree route.
My objective is to get a policy in place that is socially just, matches real people’s needs and also keeps the Liberal Democrats as the party with the widest appeal to students and graduates.
It seems a group has popped up with a thinly veiled support for the Labour PPC on facebook here
I believe that university education is both a short term local benefit (volunteering, economy, skills for cheap) and long term national benefit enough that it is ludicrous that students themselves should be paying for giving this nation and our towns the benefits they do. However along with Jo’s argument about the average earnings of a graduate being wrong, so too is the idea that every graduate will ultimately benefit the country to the tune of more than university costs.
However until you can apply a liberal stance (and I can’t see a way) of charging only the “failures” of the university system, and not the “successes” it only makes sense to me that it is fair that the education is fully funded by the state for ALL students, while the cost of living is continued as a *fair* loan (currently it is not) which is turned to a grant for those with the need for the benefit.
Saying that, such a view is my own…the NUS on the other hand passed policy a couple of years ago now that pretty much falls in line with what Stephen Williams is saying. Now while there is a bigger discussion over whether students are in touch with the NUS, the representative body of all students voted that it was time to focus the fight on better equality of access and on halting further rises to the tuition fees. Strategically I can see how this (Labour led) idea has good worth, and if Lib Dems followed it then they wouldn’t necessarily be doing anything wrong by what students are really fighting for right now.
Lee, I proposed elsewhere that we simply give every adult a wad of cash large enough to cover their university fees come their age of majority. That surely benefits everyone equally, including those for whom university is not appropriate…
I have to say, as a single mum of 3, I hope all of my children go to university. My biggest issue though is that there is no way I could support them through university, let alone help them with their fees. I earn enough that we would not qualify for help. Let alone their dads whose income would be taken into account.
Then I look at my brother who turns 30 this year and is still paying off his student debt, with two children to raise.
I believe that we have to make sure this policy works and free education is available for all who want it.
Stephen Williams says
“Finally, we did NOT promise free tuition for ALL students at the last election”
funny his election address (and I quote exactly)
“The Lib Dems would axe all tuition fees by introducing a new 50% rate of tax on all incomes over £100,000”
Nowhere on the leaflet does it qualify this to say that all does not mean all. I am sorry to say that Stephen is now rewriting history to favour his current position. Some would say lying. Good job we kept all his leaflets.
Labour, clutching at straws? Never!
“Nowhere on the leaflet does it qualify this to say that all does not mean all. I am sorry to say that Stephen is now rewriting history to favour his current position. Some would say lying. Good job we kept all his leaflets.”
That sounds a bit obsessive. Some would say bitter that Labour lost the seat and will not regain it. Shame.
Back on the substance of the issue, I would say that just because Stephen unfortunately did not faitfully reflect the party policy is not lying, but is the result of poor communication.
“I would say that just because Stephen unfortunately did not faitfully reflect the party policy is not lying, but is the result of poor communication.” Thomas Hemsley
Does this mean that he told people what would gain votes and not the whole truth – poor communication is the new economical with the truth
BWLP, so you mean to say that you want to find a home for him in your party? I don’t think insulting people is the best way to encourage defection.
oranjepan
you have found the flaw so you better keep him and let him continue to win votes for us 🙂
how many votes will you win by being snide in a comment?
Oh God.
If BWLP really does have a stake/interest in the fortunes of the Labour Party, it’s just more evidence that the Labour movement doesn’t even grasp the essentials of rudimentary logic.
Put your criticism of Stephen Williams in your leaflets by all means, but please don’t try and pass it off as an actual argument.