Posted on October 26, 2011 by Andrew Emmerson

For too long the Lib Dems have been on the back foot over tuition fees. For too long we’ve accepted the Labour line that we have somehow betrayed the youngsters of this country and ruined higher education. For too long we have been passive and quiet celebrating about what amounts to a great achievement for such a small party. Today is the day I say no to Labour lies. Today is the day I stop accepting lectures, won’t you join me?

It’s worth noting that what set me off was the amount of crowing with the know it all tone today that University applications are down 2.4%, but courtesy of @StuartBonar we know that number of babies born 18 years ago down 2.3% on previous year.

So where do you start in combating Labour. The first is giving a bit of historical perspective. Labour are not perfect, and have never been perfect on the subject of higher education and tuition fees.

Labour History

1) In 1996, John Major comissioned the Dearing Report in response to a funding gap in Higher education, by September 1998, the Labour government had issued a response which said

“The Government plans to introduce an annual tuition fee of £1,000, representing about a quarter of the average cost of a course. Tuition will continue to be free for students from lower income families. Other full-time students will pay up to £1,000 per year depending on parental income. The cost of the fees will be balanced by increased loans for maintenance.

This also meant that ‘The student grant of £1,710 is abolished to be replaced by income-contingent student loans.’

I wonder how progressive it was scrapping grants and introducing debts for the first time into the student system? I wonder what Mr Labour Livingstone said? Well he accused ministers of “whipping away a ladder of opportunity which they themselves had climbed”

Quite.

2) Then in 2001, Labour were re-elected with this sentence in their manifesto… “We will not introduce ‘top-up’ fees and have legislated to prevent them” Yet in 2003, Less than two years after pledging not to introduce top-up fees, Labour publishes a white paper setting out proposals allowing universities to set their own tuition fees up to a cap of £3,000 a year.

Quite a betrayal to all those students who voted for Labour right?

3) Lastly, in the dying throes of the Labour government, Lord Mandelson implemented the Browne review (something promised in 2004 to placate Labour rebels). Now i’m not a mind reader, and nor did I expect Mandelson to be, but if you place Browne, a man who is a former chair of BP, in charge, you must expect some sort of recommended increase. Now Labour were either politically ignorant, or just down right lying to claim they expected any other.

Even Labours manifesto in 2010 said they’d support the outcomes of the Browne review. Which coincidentally recommended removing the cap on fees.

What makes all of this much much worse than a Lib Dem position? In 1997, Labour had a 418 out of 639 seats in parliament, and in 2001, 413 out of 659 seats. Those are two over whelming majorities that really allowed Labour to do what they liked.

The role of the Liberal Democrats.

What Labour conveniently forget to, is the size and political position of our party. With just 62 out of 650 MPs, we represent around 8% of parliament. That means in coalition, we simply could not win everything. Tuition fees was not one of our big 4 policies on the front page of our manifesto.

It begs the question how many red lines can there be? Was it worth breaking government to see a tory majority to do so?

It would have been nice if our MPs had abstained like the coalition agreement had allowed, but do I blame Nick, Vince et al. after working so hard on making the bill as progressive as possible for voting for it? No. No I don’t.

That comes from the strength of the bill.

The bill is a good one. Let’s keep saying it!

Lets state the points

1) For the first time, nobody shall pay any fees up front.

2) For the first time, their is loans available for everyone who needs them

3) Trebling tuition fees doesn’t always mean tripling your costs

4) Earn under £21,000 and you’ll never repay

5) Repayments will be £540 a year lower than now

6) Many people will never pay it all back

In fact, putting my own details into the Student Loan Calculator, (For verifiable purposes, my undergrad course has been priced at £8,500. My loan was £4,500 a year, and the last job I applied for matching my skills was £18,500) shows me that I’ll only pay back £7k in its entirety. That is actually a saving of £15,500 over my life time (3 years x £3k + 3 years x 4.5k = £22.5k)

If that isn’t a better system. I’m not sure exactly what is worse about that system!

Labour have played the politics of fear. Attack them for it.

Its been a bruising time to be a Liberal Democrat, not only has the level of bile and rhetoric thrown at us by the Labour Party, we’ve been led to believe its coming at us on the doorstep too (It really isn’t in my experience) we have failed to take into account what Labour are saying and doing, and missing a very good point.

Labour are practising the politics of fear. They’ve been telling students that they won’t be able to afford their degree. That they’ll be saddled with debt that will affect their life chances.

Those are just damned lies. Lies that make students worry, that scare them into thinking they won’t have the cash to pay for university, that it’ll affect their credit ratings and mortgage and life chances. Yet we know that no one has to pay anything up front, that no one will come crashing on the door for the money if you aren’t earning enough to pay for it, and that the information that you are a graduate can’t be used against you in financial terms.

I find it ironic that same Labour government produced this video enclosed in the Guy News segment, telling people that higher costs were an investment they shouldn’t worry about.

If uni admissions are down, it’ll be because of that scaremongering and the failure to communicate the facts.

We’ve also missed a chance to go on the offensive about Ed Milibands pretty vacuous announcement that he’d cut the sticker price from 9k to 6k. Which was highlighted as nothing more than a tax cut for the richest graduates here and here.

So we didnt attack Ed scaring applicants away with spurious hyperbole, and then offering a tax cut for the richest?

So next time a Labour Party member tries to tell you that tuition fees are the great betrayal, you tell them that

a) they introduced fees

b) Introduced top up fees

c) Set the terms for the Browne review

d) Promised to support its outcomes

e) Refused to go into coalition with the party that would have kept fees down

f) Promised to raise fees to 6k

g) Offered a tax cut to the richest graduate

h) scared away the poorest in society from applying

That isn’t a record to be proud off. That is a record to be ashamed off