Post the Browne report, Vince Cable’s been working to produce a more progressive way of funding Higher Education.
I have always believed that education should be free – for everyone – and always will. However, Labour ended the principle of free education with the introduction of tuition fees – and whichever way you turn in the current climate – those fees or costs are going to go up. I also despair that virtually the entire conversation around Higher Education is about the economics and nothing else.
Vince, as I said, has been working beyond hard to try and make this as good as it can be – and as progressive as can be.
A brief synopsis of the proposals:
1. All students will repay less per month under this Government’s policy than they currently pay.
2. The lowest earning 25% of graduates will repay less under this Government’s policy than they do now.
3. The top earning 30% of graduates will pay back more than they borrow and are likely to pay more than double the bottom 20% of earners.
4. Over half a million students will be eligible for more non-repayable grants for living costs than they get now.
- Almost one million students will be eligible for more overall maintenance support than they get now
6. Part time students will no longer have to pay up front fees benefiting up to 200,000 per year
7. There will be an extra £150m for a new National Scholarship Programme for students from poorer backgrounds and we will introduce tough new sanctions of universities who fail to improve their access to students from backgrounds.
This is not coming to the floor of the House for a few weeks yet to come and is a difficult issue for Liberal Democrats because we cannot have the solution we, on the whole, want.
The Coalition agreement only goes as far as to say “We will await Lord Browne’s final report into higher education funding, and will judge its proposals … If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that the Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote”.
So the issue will be whether the Liberal Democrat MPs feel that the response to Lord Browne’s report is acceptable or not.
The NHS pledge which most LibDems signed up (including me) said: “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”
Vince has made it quite clear that the pledge is subsumed by the coalition agreement – and indeed – because even if it wasn’t, as he said in Parliament, we cannot keep that first part of the pledge – it is no longer viable.
However, he also argues, that the second part of the pledge he has undoubtedly delivered on – a much, much fairer regime than under Labour.
I won’t make a final decision until the final proposals are on the table. I will have three choices in theory: support the Government (and as a Minister this would be the norm), abstain as per the coalition agreement or vote against as per the NUS pledge.
Lynne Featherstone 
I voted for you because you believed that fees should be abolished and you signed a pledge saying so.
If you don’t resign your ministerial post over this and actually vote to treble fees I’ve no option but to campaign against you. This ‘new politics’ stinks.
Well said Dom!
Well said Dom! Thanks.
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From this website
http://www.lynnefeatherstone.org/2002/11/top-up-fees-mp-roche-challenged.htm
“Labour’s 2001 election manifesto promised not to introduce top-up fees. Now, however, many in the government are supporting plans to let universities charge higher fees – with the result that access to the top universities will be determined by wealth rather than ability.
Ms Featherstone says this suggested U-turn is a betrayal of Labour promises over the issue, and the local MP should be supporting hard-up local students on the issue, particularly with the area having many students and the Middlesex University campus in Bounds Green.”
This isn’t just about fees of course, it’s about the integrity of politicians.
On some of the points above
As its based on earnings no-one knows before they go to Uni what they’ll earn and what the repayments will be, so we can’t say it’ll be fairer or not. The point is poorer potential students are being asked to place themselves in an unsure position in terms of income with a assured position of high debt.
The £150m scholarship is a welcome step but in context there’s 2.5 million students in higher education. Let’s say the poorest 10% get support. This means they get £600 each from the Scholarship and face £6,000 a year higher fees and a higher rate of interest. I think there’s danger in suggesting this as a equalising measure.
I am dumbstruck that you are proposing to vote for this because you are not convinced by the ‘alternatives’ presented on here – that’s completely preposterous, nuts beyond belief.
It was YOUR POLICY to scrap tuition fees, why are you now asking for others to justify and explain this? You have managed to turn the democratic process completely on its head: rather than fighting for your policies, you are dis-owning them. If the plan to scrap tuition fees were un-costed and un-workable, how on earth could you have stood and asked people to cast their vote for you on this basis? Its tin-pot politics.
Remarkably, you have now created a situation where the people who voted for you (and for the policies you espoused) have to now convince you why they were worthwhile and how they should be paid for. That is a complete betrayal of trust and makes a travesty of the electoral process. Utterly, utterly disgraceful.
Will you be raising the local speed limit to 60mph in six months time? How can we tell if you break the promise that you made on fees six months ago?
My son only voted for you because of your election promise that university fees would be reduced. Unless you vote against this his vote will have helped to achieve exactly the opposite.
So beautifully expressed Ben.
But did you see Question Time? Turns out that, in Jeremy Browne, there was a Lib Dem MP in Sheffield on Thursday night who is actually worse than Lynne.
Laws, Clegg, Featherstone, Alexander, Cable, Browne.
Is there no beginning to their talents?
The real story here is surely that – despite all the gushing about how brilliant it all is, Lynne is so desperately unhappy she is considering voting against the government she is a member of and so ending her career.
Despite everything she says she obviously realises that every day this government continues is another where the Lib Dems hopes in Haringey are being ground further into the dust.
It would be tragic if it wasn’t – to use a phrase of David Cameron’s – so delicious.
@Stroudgreenvoter
I agree with you and wouldn’t want to be in Lynne’s shoes at all. She is effectively digging herself deeper and deeper into a government which is so right-wing that it is so far different from what Lynne obviously believes in.
In the end Lynne will probably have to make a huge decision; does she follow her heard & heart or does she follow David Cameron. There are huge risks on both sides for her. It is a dilemma most LDs are likely to have soon, they cannot credibly continue following Cameron off a cliff…
Natacha – yes you’re right – despite all the pretty hard-edged comment on this blog (I plead guilty) – there is a human element to this. Poor old Lynne. I’ve always regarded her as a hard-working local MP and a very personable, approachable lady.
So it must be giving her a few sleepless nights seeing her political career disintegrating in front of her.
It seems to me she has a clear choice, as I’ve always said: either go with the flow and face a slow nosedive into political obscurity, along with her party, or stand up for principle.
The question of higher education fees puts that dilemma in stark relief. Either stand up for what you and your leaders said about this and vote against the government’s proposals, or go down in history as one of the most unprincipled, deceitful, power-hungry politicians in living memory. It’s up to you, Lynne. You pays yer money and takes yer choice!
5 out of every 6 comments have been deleted (even your own), opening double post remains.
Says it all really – clearly not much Liberal or Democrat left.
Incidentally Lynne, you need to reset the comment counters too (after deleting this post), because everyone can see the extent to which you disregard public opinion and tune out dissent.
ChrisB
To save Lynne herself saying it – and thus deflecting attention from some interesting questions being asked of her – you need to click on “older comments”. As far as I can tell, all the comments are still here.
Sorry, I really don’t buy this ‘poor old Lynne’ line at all. Either you have principles or you don’t. ‘All power corrupts…etc’ seems to fit the bill.
Nobody forced her to sign the pledge.
Nobody forced her to take a post as a junior minister.
Nobody is forcing her to abandon the position she has so strongly argued on tuition fees for a number of years.
Nobody has forced her to buy in to all of the other policies that she actually now advocates for in the pretence that it is “in the national interest”.
Why then should we have any sympathy when it is perfectly obvious that voting against it is the right thing to do?
Hi Lynne,
I’ve had some thoughts myself: http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-no-more-broken-promises-21942.html
Fred’s conclusion is absolutely borne out by the figures, his article is an excellent analysis of higher education spending.
“Nations that charge high tuition fees become unequal nations; nations that don’t invest in their universities become poor nations.”
The argument that “we can’t afford it” simply doesn’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny..
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Hilarious stuff. “I know I promised to pay you back the money I borrowed – it’s just that now I don’t want to, so maybe I won’t…I’ll have a think about it and let you know…oh and by the way, you couldn’t lend us a tenner could you?!”
From today’s Guardian: ‘UK fees will be the highest in the world for state universities (the US ivy league institutions are private)’
Lynne, you’re a decent person and a popular MP. I’m a Labour party member but I’d say without hesitation that you’ve been magnificent in the campaign to draw funding into Haringey for education.
What do we say to Haringey young people on this? It’s about equality. You represent some of the most affluent eighteen year olds in the country but you also represent households that are really struggling.
My sons’ mates are either at university or planning to go soon. The current fee level wasn’t welcome but they are, and were, prepared to bite the bullet. For many of them, what the coalition are proposing is more money than they, and perhaps more importantly their families, have ever heard of.
The media are very ready to characterise these kids as doing nonsense degrees they drop out of because they’re poor and not well educated, but it’s not true. What the Muswell Hill chattering classes are afraid of is that somebody from the Campsbourne Estate will take their child’s Oxbridge place, on merit.
I was prepared to go along with tuition fees myself when they were introduced because I thought it was about time that free universities, and grants, stopped being a perk for the posh. I recognised that for Middle English or Phonetics departments, for example, to stay open, after years of Thatcherite underinvestment, there needed to be a cash injection into colleges. I know that graduates usually earn more in the end (and actually a lot of the kids I was teaching at the time worked out for themselves that going to university was an investment in their future.)
But this, now, is all much too much, and you know it. This isn’t about the level of fees or about funding universities, but about humiliating the Lib Dems and slaughtering another of their sacred cows for burgers. That’s what ‘We are all in this together,’ really means.
You aren’t somebody who would put holding onto the seat, or rank, before your values and your promises. Very few of your constituents would have expected you to get so far into the Tory camp as you have done. Maybe it’s time to be brave and honest with your new friends. They’re not really your friends and I imagine you have been worrying for some time about this. This ought to be the issue you draw the line on….
Julie Davies
“What the Muswell Hill chattering classes are afraid of is that somebody from the Campsbourne Estate will take their child’s Oxbridge place, on merit.”
Please tell me you are joking. Surely nobody seriously believes this? I don’t know who is worse – the LibDem power-huggers squirming out of their pledges, the Tories trust-funders telling us we’re all sharing the pain, or the old school Trots still trotting out the same brainless class war cliches.
We’re doomed.
Keep your promise Lynne.
It’s not just the issue of fees. It’s the disastrous 40% cuts to the universities budget. It’s the total removal of government funding for some of the most important courses – english, history, economics, politics. Is this really what you went into politics to help achieve?
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As a student I voted for you for your stance on human rights and tuition fees in the recent election. I have also in the past campaigned for you quite a lot in my area. I now feel betrayed that the Liberal Democrats have gone back on their word about tuition fees. I am currently doing a 4 year course and I calculated that if I had gone to university for my course under these tuition fees I would have to pay back over £20,000 which is ridiculous! I don’t accept that there is no other choice but to make these increases. I would urge you to vote no to the rise in tuition fees. Make the right choice Lynne!
Nick Clegg is quoted today – defending his dishonest position on tuition fees – as saying “We didn’t win the election outright.” Next time you’re nestling up to him over a canape or two can you remind him that you didn’t win the election at all. You came a distant third, also known as last.
Here is a video of what happened to most of us on the anti cuts demo. Quite a few of the people on camera told me they are your constituents, students at City & Islington College, as is one of the interviewees.
You will not fail to notice the very high level of antipathy towards the Lib Dems, especially by students who voted LD in May.
I am one of your constituents, and did not vote Liberal Democrat. However, I have always admired your efforts as our MP to deal with local issues in a successful, progressive way.
Unfortunately, your party has had to eat its own words and I expect the vast majority of Liberal Democrat seats will be non existent come the next general election. Not even the well heeled North Londoners that you represent can afford the unfeasibly high rate of tuition fees and neither should they be expected to.
Being a student is a totally amazing experience, and it is going to be the case that the future generation will bare all the scars of this disastrous and unremittingly unfair policy.
Hi Lynne,
I attended the march yesterday, 52000 people they reckon turned up, mainly ex-lib dem voters now i reckon. A YouGov poll today put your party 11 points behind from the beginning of this election, why exactly is your party in this coalition, since you seem to capitulate at every turn- Where have your ideals gone?!
The LibDems were aware of the financial deficit when they signed their pledge to oppose a rise in tuition fees. So either they were being cynical because they did not believe it was possible to gain power, or their pledges are meaningless. This is a clear point of principle. You campaigned and won votes on the basis of opposing a rise in university fees. The new proposals are unacceptable and place far too high a burden on young students who will contribute to our country’s cultural and economic future life. Lynne, I am sure you know in your heart what you should do. That is, resign your Ministerial post which is causing you to compromise your integrity, and vote against this Coalition proposal.
The coalition leaders argue that the huge cuts they have put into effect must be made now because to defer them would be to load the burden on to future generations – and that, according to them, would be “unfair”.
So how come they are happy to load tens of thousands of pounds of debt on to individuals and their families – in the future – by cutting university tuition funding and forcing students to pile up huge personal debts?
Come on Lynne, admit it, this is pure right-wing nonsense. If, like me, you believe education is a benefit for all of society and that it should not depend on the ability to pay, you must oppose this extremely destructive and regressive policy.
Clegg said that he found the country’s finances were in such a bad state when he became deputy PM that he had to break his promise.
This is rubbish. Before the election the deficit was £179 billion, by the election it was revised downwards to £163.4 billion, by the time the government was formeb it was down to £156 billion.
In other words, by the time he had formed a government with the Tories, the deficit was £24 billion LESS than when he (and you) promised to vote against student fees.
So his excuse that the economy was worse than he expected is a lie.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/12/lib-dems-tuition-fees-clegg
Lynne,
Are you really on the fence, or are you just letting us down in slow motion? As every commenter above realises, it is your moral obligation to stick to your promise and to do what you clearly know is right.
If holding on to your position requires you to betray those who voted for you, betray your own convictions, and betray our country’s future…. why on earth would you want to keep it?
Vote against fees and cuts and you won’t have failed.
Nick Clegg’s argument that he “should have been more careful” when he signed the pledge not to raise tuition fees is beside the point. The issue goes far deeper than his personal betrayal of a particular commitment and touches on the very foundations of our parliamentary democracy. Clegg’s beliefs are irrelevant: he was elected as a member of a political party committed to a specific party political platform. That is why people voted for him and why he is now an MP.
In changing his mind and enabling the formation of a government which is now implementing the opposite policy – not only on fees but on other basic Lib Dem policies – Clegg has subverted his own election as MP, his party, and the whole UK electoral process. What is the point of parties, what is the point of elections, if the MPs duly elected immediately shape-shift into their political opposites? For this reason, the government has no mandate for its existing programme. But we need to take the argument further: Clegg and the other Lib Dem supporters of the government have cheated the electorate. In these circumstances, civil disobedience is not merely an option for us to consider, but a duty in defence of political rights.
Members and supporters of the Lib Dems must also face up to their own responsibilities. They must do whatever they can right now to take the levers of power away from Clegg and his fellow shape-shifters. If they fail to act, then they will be tarred as accomplices, not only in this unprecedented attack on jobs, services and living standards, but on parliamentary democracy itself.
The coalition leaders argue that they must make huge cuts in the deficit now because delay would be unfair to future generations.
Yet they seem happy with the idea of piling massive debts onto students and their families in the future.
I stick to the idea that education is a benefit to all of society and should be paid for out of general taxation.
How about you, Lynne? Is that a policy that is “no longer viable”?
By the way, it might be useful to us as your constituents if you were to draw up an at-a-glance guide to what you now believe, as opposed to what you used to believe before surrendering to the lure of power.
Although thinking about it, that might be a pretty slim volume.
Please Lynne, show us you’re still a true Lib Dem!
I’m sure you won’t lose your place in Government if you decide to keep your pledge, but if you do you’d be a great candidate for London Mayor.
Wot my namessake said. Mr Cheeky Girls wouldn’t stand a chance at the best of times…
It’s as simple as this: I gave my vote to you, Lynne, and your party, based on your anti-tuition fee policy.
Now that you have withdrawn the policy upon which my vote was based, surely legally I, and all the others in my situation, have the right to withdraw our votes and to demand a re-vote.
At present you do not deserve your place in parliament and your party certainly does not deserve its coalition since it’s election was based on a lie.
Alternatives, you say?
Let’s have FREE university education for the brightest and most able students, not means tested but academically tested. So the kid from the estate can go to a Russell Group university and not finish their education with a 30k debt.
Scrap the pointless degrees that are just there to make people feel good about themselves and replace them with one year training courses that are work focused.
Encourage all universities to offer more part time and evening based degrees so people can work and study at the same time; give tax breaks to companies who support their staff through these degrees.
Make A levels (and GCSEs) tougher and set up a body to ensure that exam boards are not setting the bar low in order to gain business. De-privatize education – schools and universities should not be in the business of making money.
Tell the NUS executive off for being more focused on their own nascent political careers than looking after their members.
And, most importantly, stick to your election promises, because without integrity you have nothing to offer.
I am a Libdem member and I strongly disagree with the proposed cuts to the proposals for a cut of up to 80% to the university teaching grants. This is completely irrational. Higher education is in the national interest. Irrespective of the debate about how graduates make a fair contribution to their education, it is a grave mistake to cut funding by 80%. Cutting government funding to HE by 80% will severely harm the future of our universities. No other major industrial nation proposes cuts of 80% to higher education. Britain will fall back behind China, the US, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and many more countries. It is the road to disaster. We need a massive increase of our research and education budget to compete with China, the US and the rest of Europe.
Nick rightly argues that what matters is the national interest. Is it in the national interest to cut university teaching budgets by 80% while China, India, the US, Canada and Australia INCREASE teaching and research investments? I disagree with Nick and Vince and I agree with the LibDem manifesto, and all other advanced nations that higher education is essential for the future wellbeing of any advanced society. Are China, India, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden,… all wrong? Even almost bankrupt California would never be so foolish to cut the budget for it’s main asset, the University of California by 80%. Irrespective of any pledges, anyone who wants to cut state funding to higher education by 80% is not acting in the national interest.
Probably the most distinctive thing about the Lib Dems before the election was their no-ifs-no-buts assertion that education is a common good and therefore should be paid out of general taxation, and that they would abolish tuition fees. Now they are backing proposals for a huge cut in university tuition funding and consequent huge increases in student tuition fees.
It’s very, very simple: one of the biggest reasons for support the Lib Dems has disappeared in a puff of chicanery.
And that invalidates all the other reasons, because who now could every vote Lib Dem on the basis of what they say their policies are? Once in power, all those promises may well go straight out the window.
To Lynne Featherstone.
My daughter voted for you at the election given your pledge to abolish tuition fees.
Given her generation have been dismissed as the first truly politically apathetic generation, it was great to see her & her subsequent peer group engaged in politics for the first time.
The only ‘meaningful’ political losers in the current climate of you and your party’s continued hypocritical stance on breaking every promise you made whilst campaigning before the election- is this generation, who now cynically dismiss your party as corrupted by power and you in particular as a liar.
You’ll probably wheel out the retort as ‘well what’s the alternative?’, so try these answers.
a) It’s up to you to find the alternative in a way that represents your constituents- You work for us; why are you not representing our thoughts?
b) Find the money in the £121bn of tax avoidance, propped up by the Tory grandees or the capital gains tax that’s been written off for company’s such as Vodafone.
While you’re at it, please could you issue us with a list of your own belief’s, as nobody has a clue where you stand politically any more (although certainly a Tory I presume).
We can then compare and contrast these against your archive pages on this site and get you recalled, once this becomes legistlation (although I very much doubt that this ‘pledge’ will be passed with Clegg’s support!)
If you are against the raising of higher education tuition fees, then go to the National Union of Students website and sign their MP Recall petition for those MPs who have broken their pre election pledges.
Here’s the Right to Recall website
http://www.righttorecall.co.uk/
The increased fees that are proposed would not bring any money in until 2015 at the earliest so they are nothing to do with cutting the current deficit
As shown on this site, the topic “Higher Education” attracted 96 comments – many more than, for example, “Highgate Choral society”, “Christmas Card Competition” and “Baroness Newlove’s Blog” – not that these aren’t interesting or important topics. But, apart from a few negative and contestable comments made at the very beginning, Lynne Featherstone has remained silent on the subject of higher education! Lynne, please can you update your constitutents what your current thinking is ? To start with you made it sound as though you weren’t quite sure which way to go – so where are you at just now?
Come on Lynne, tell us what you think – it’s not like you to be shy!
This is crunch time for so many Lib Dems around the country.
Vote in support of the proposals and be forever associated with Tory cuts and as the party that damaged forever our unique higher education system.
Abstain and show yourself as complicit in the Tory assault.
Or, bite the bullet, listen to your heart and vote against the proposed bill as your colleagues Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy have the courage to do.
For a party that has had its first taste of government in many years voting in support of these (let’s face it) “Tory proposals” would be to lose all confidence in those constituents that elected you based on you and your party’s promises.
I just hope you have the courage to put politics aside, stop kidding yourself that the proposals are fair or the right thing for our country and our children and listen to your heart and your constituents.
Dear Lynne,
I really appreciate your support for Trans people, we feel that we have a real friend in you, but I feel that you could actually do much more for trans people, especially trans young people, by voting against fees. This is much too important an issue, and it is an issue which relates to your own credibility; it is going to be no use whatsoever to trans people for our main supporter in parliament to be considered untrustworthy.
It is also not going to do us any good if you lose your seat at the next election. Vote against, and if necessary consider joining the Labour Party; you could probably dictate your terms to an Ed Mil who would welcome you with open arms…
Natacha