Will Damian Green Keep His Word On Tuition Fees?

 

Damian Green, Shadow Immigration Minister and MP for Ashford, faces a battle with his own policy proposals over the future of University tuition fees.

This week Lord Mandleson launched a review of the top-up fees system in Higher Education. The review, headed by leaders of industry and the upper management of two Universities, has been widely criticised for the lack of student representation on the panel. The findings of the review are feared to include raising tuition fees up to £7000 per year, doubling the amount of debt graduates leave with up to over £40,000. The review has been backed by both Labour and Conservatives, and will likely be adopted as policy by whichever party wins the election next year.

The press have accused both parties of putting off the review until this point, so as not to make tuition fees a point of debate during the run up to the election. To combat this, the NUS have addressed every MP and asked them to sign a pledge agreeing to vote against any raise in tuition fees. Ashford Resistance personally contacted our MP, Damian Green (shadow minister for immigration) with this email (taken in part from 38 Degrees):

Dear Mr. Green,

I’m worried about the review of student top-up fees and higher education funding in England, which Lord Mandelson announced yesterday.  I’m concerned that this review will be used to sneak through plans to hike tuition fees after the next election, without politicians having to come clean about their plans when they face voters.

That would be a scandal when a recent YouGov poll found that 88% of the public doesn’t even want the review to consider increasing fees. I feel as if the placement of this review after the general election is a deliberate attempt to keep an unpopular policy change out of the pre-election headlines.

Both my fiancé and I have been fortunate enough to have a University education, however this has left us with a debt almost the size of a mortgage, which will not be repaid when we retire. This is as a direct result of top-up fees, and I cannot see how a proposed increase in fees will ever be repayable within the lifetime of the average student without radical change (for the worse) in the way that loans are repaid.

I am afraid that any future increase in tuition fees, along with the proposed privitisation of the Student Loans Company, will lead to a selective University entrance policy based on Credit scores, as students apply for bank loans to supplement their studies. I’m sure you will agree that this would be a devastating blow to the class structure of this country, but if the Government allows control of the education system to slip into the hands of private companies, it will lose control of the ability to make positive reform. We have already seen this happen in the privitisation of the railways, we must not allow it to happen to our education system.

I’d like you to sign the Funding Our Future Pledge organised by the NUS – “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”. Please let me know whether you are willing to sign up. I’d also like you to agree to attend a lobby event organised by the NUS on Wednesday (details below).

It is unlikely that a loyal Tory front bench MP would go against his party line and sign the pledge. However, this would go completely against a debate he lead in parliament over the original top-up fees increase back in 2003.

In his speech, Mr. Green argued that tuition fees further dissuade students from attending University from working and lower-middle class backgrounds. He referred to a policy promising that a Conservative Government would scrap tuition fees, saying:

“The best way to make access to university free and fair is to make education free and for admissions to be fair and decided on merit and potential alone.”

This is at odds with current Conservative policy – that is, to keep quiet until the election is over and then go along with whatever the review decides.

Ashford Resistance looks forward to Mr. Green’s reply, and will be trying to establish a meeting our MP about this matter. We will keep the blog updated with any further correspondence from our parliamentary representative.