Tuition Fees, NUS and political point scoring

Throughout this article, I intend to make clear what I see are the facts on this highly debated topic of current affairs. I will begin with the facts, starting with party manifestos of 2010.

Facts of party manifestos:
The Labour Party manifesto said this about the Browne report into Higher Education funding:

"The review of higher education funding chaired by Lord Browne will report later this year. Our aim is to continue the expansion of higher education, widening access still further, while ensuring that universities and colleges have a secure, long-term funding base that protects world-class standards in teaching and research."

The Conservative Party manifesto said this about Browne report into Higher Education funding:
"We will await Lord Browne's final report into higher education funding, and will judge its proposals against the need to: increase social mobility; take into account the impact on student debt; ensure a properly funded university sector; improve the quality of teaching; advance scholarship; and attract a higher proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.We will review support for part-time students in terms of loans and fees.We will publish more information about the costs, graduate earnings and student satisfaction of different university courses.We will ensure that public funding mechanisms for university research safeguard its academic integrity."

The Liberal Democrats manifesto said this about Browne report into Higher Education funding:

"Scrap unfair tuition fees for all students taking their first degree, including those studying part-time saving them over £10,000 each. We have a financially responsible plan to phase fees out over 6 years, so that the change is affordable even in these difficult economic times, and without cutting university income. We will immediately scrap fees for final year students."

The Green party manifesto said this about Browne report into Higher Education funding: 

"Phase in the abolition of student tuition fees in higher education."

The UK Indpedence party manifesto said this about Browne report into Higher Education funding: 

"UKIP believes the introduction of tuition fees and loans has been a retrogressive step. How many of those of us who benefited from a grant would have had second thoughts about further education if we had known we would be saddled with such a large debt on leaving university? In 2009, the BBC estimated that students who started University that year could expect to graduate with a debt of £23,000 with the Government spending five billion on student support. The UK Independence Party intends to restore student grants in the form of ‘Student Vouchers’ for a substantial element of student costs, particularly tuition fees (rather than living costs).
Our proposals will result in fewer students than at present spending so long in full-time education. Therefore extra funding will be available which, over a period of time, will enable the student loans scheme to be replaced by grants, and the Student Loan Company can be scrapped. Considerable additional finance will become available when Britain leaves the European Union, and no longer has to fund large numbers of  non-UK EU students at British universities. Indeed, the number of EU students at UK Universities has risen from 91,000 in 2007 to 112,150 in 2008. Under EU laws in a ‘country called Europe’ it is illegal for UK universities to prioritise UK students. Also, instead of having to pay the full overseas student fees of between £8,000 and £20,000 per year, these, non-UK EU students only need to find the £3,000 top-up fee. Like British students they are eligible for a student loan to cover this and, so far, little attempt has been made to trace foreign students once they leave the UK to recover these loans. Indeed, Boris Johnston asks in the Daily Telegraph if ‘we are really going to pay to send British tax officials tramping up dusty tracks in Sicily or knocking on doors in Warsaw to find out whether or not a former EU student at a UK university is earning
more than £15,000?’24. From the 2008 figure, the UK would have gained £1.12 billion extra by charging EU students the overseas rate after leaving the EU."

The Scottish National party manifesto said this about Browne report into Higher Education funding:

"In the year ahead, Scottish students will get new financial support, with a £30 million package to increase their income through grants and loans. The SNP will not introduce tuition fees or top up fees and will oppose any changes in english fees arrangements that have the knock on effect of reducing funding for Scotland through the Barnett formula, as we have done previously."

The Plaid Cymru party manifesto said this about Browne report into Higher Education funding:

"We will not support any further increases in tuition fees, and will seek the abolition of tuition fees as and when public finances allow."

Facts of who signed the pledge:
265 out of 631 (42.0%) Labour Candidates signed the NUS pledge to keep the cap
17 out of 631 (2.69%) Conservative Candidates signed the NUS pledge to keep the cap
531 out of 631 (84.2%) Liberal Democrat Candidates signed the NUS pledge to keep the cap
313 out of 330 (94.8%) Green Candidates signed the NUS pledge to keep the cap
259 out of 572 (45.3%) UKIP Candidates signed the NUS pledge to keep the cap
50 out of 59 SNP (84.7%) Candidates signed the NUS pledge to keep the cap
10 out of 40 (25%) Plaid Cymru Candidates signed the NUS pledge to keep the cap

Facts on how many MPs signed the Pledge:
92 out of 258 (35.7%) Labour MPs signed the pledge
3 out 306 (0.980%) Conservative MPs signed the pledge
57 out of 57 (100%) Liberal Democrat MPs signed the pledge1 out of 1 (100%) Green MPs signed the pledge
1 out of 3 (33.3%) SDLP MPs signed the pledge
0 out of 6 (0%) SNP MPs signed the pledge
0 out of 3 (0%) Plaid Cymru MPs signed the pledge
0 out of 5 (0%) Sinn Fein MPs signed the pledge
0 out of 8 (0%) DUP MPs signed the pledge
0 out of 1 (0%) Alliance MPs signed the pledge
0 out of 1 (0%) Speaker signed the pledge (NB: the speaker cannot vote unless there is a tie)
0 out of 1 (0%) Independent MPs (Sylvia Hermon) signed the pledge
154 out of 650 MPs (23.7%)  from all parties signed the pledge

So if one were to rank parties in the race for which party would be the greatest supporter of stopping any rise in tuition fees, the results would look something like this:

1st Place: Liberal Democrats, for all of its elected MPs as pledge signatories
2nd Place: Green Party, for gettin of its elected MPs as pledge signatories, but were pipped by not having as many MPs as the Lib Dems
3rd Place: Labour, although they got the most MPs elected signed, NUS could only convince 35.7% of its MPs to support keeping the cap. Well to give Labour some credit, it is a 0.5% improvement on the vote for them in 2005 general election.
4th Place: Conservative Party, the less said the better
5th Place: SDLP, so close to coming 4th, and could have easily come second if NUS had convinced all their MPs to sign up to the pledge. Now wouldn't that have been embarrassing for Labour!

But hold on for a moment, nobody wins a majority of MPs, so what happens, after 5 days of talks the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives form a Coalition Government.

What does the Coaltion document say on Tuition Fees and the Browne Report?
"We will await Lord Browne’s final report into higher education funding, and will judge its proposals against the need to: increase social mobility; take into account the impact on student debt; ensure a properly funded university sector; improve the quality of teaching; advance scholarship; and attract a higher proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote. We will review support for part-time students in terms of loans and fees. We will publish more information about the costs, graduate earnings and student satisfaction of different university courses. We will ensure that public funding mechanisms for university research safeguard its academic integrity."

The crucial sentence in that report is: "If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote."

Currently there are 650 MPs
640MPs have the opportunity to vote (5 Sinn Fein refuse to sit in the Commons, 1 Speaker, 2 Deputy Speakers (1 from Labour and the Conservatives each) and 2 tellers, again 1 each)
So in order to reach a majority (assuming everyone votes), the government needs 321.
The Conservatives have 305 voting MPs, 3 of which have already declared they will stick to the pledge, and since renewed that pledge. This gives the Conservatives a total possible of 302 in support.
Labour have 256 voting MPs. Harriet Harman suggested strongly in Prime Minister's Questions on 10/11/10 that Labour would fight against the government proposal on fees, but no party line has been visably formally set, and the Labour Party website has no declaration either way as such, so we cannot be sure as to what their stance is. Assuming the 92 stick to their pledge vote against, that still leaves 164 unaccounted for.
The Liberal Democrats have 57MPs all of which have signed the pledge. 5 of which are now in the cabinet, and are probably going to vote with the government. 20 are junior ministers or PPS' meaning they if they vote against the government, they must resign. Both sets have the principle of collective responsibility applied to them. the remaining 32 MPs will probably have a free vote, but most will either abstain or vote against.
Plaid, SNP, SDLP, Alliance, Green and Independent MPs will either abstain or vote against, in line with their party's manifestos, even though no Plaid, SNP, Alliance or Independent MP signed the pledge. The DUP however, might vote for it, as they are closely alleigned politically with the Conservatives.

So we have a
probable 307 for, with another possible 8 for.
a probable 141 against, with another possible 184 against.

This gives us:
315 for a rise
325 against a rise
640 total

Anyone who has read or seen any coverage of NUS's view on fees will note that their main target has been the Liberal Democrats. This would be understandable, if one could be sure that Labour are going to vote against any rise whatsoever, along with the rest of the opposition parties, as taking even as many as 32 Lib Dem MPs to vote with the opposition (assuming all the opposition MPs are voting against the matter), would give the following vote result (assuming all MPs actively take a stance):

316
307
20 LD PPS' abstaining
8 DUP unknown voting intention.

However, NUS has recently launched a 'right to recall' campaign, in which it urges people to pledge not to vote for any MP who votes to scrap the EMA, and who votes for higher fees. The petition of getting voters to pledge that they will not vote for their MP if their MP votes for those two things to occur, would be spot on IF it was not done under the headline banner of 'right to recall'.

The whole point in the right to recall pledge made by the Lib Dems, is that it allows constituents to call for a by-election if they believe their MP has be involved in "serious wrongdoing." A video, even on NUS's own website www.righttorecall.co.uk advertises the DPM Nick Clegg declaring that legislation on this will be brought forth in the New Year, yet above this video, NUS is already declaring that the Liberal Democrats have broken their promise on bringing forth this right for the people. I hope you see the slight hypocrisy by NUS in stating this claim and then having such a clip of Nick Clegg.
The other factor is, and this is still undetermined, what constitutes as "serious wrongdoing?" If it was what NUS are suggestion, and is merely a broken promise, then how does could it work? MPs are elected by their constituents on a cross basis of what national (or Federal in the case of the Lib Dems) party they belong to, and its respective promises, what regional party they belong to (or national in the cases of the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish Parties) and its respective promises, as well as then the local party, and the local needs of the constituents to which the MP stands for and may even write as a manifesto of his or her own. Often, the various levels can conflict, and while it may be in the national interest for say, a Coal Power Station to open in the hills of Powys, it may not be in the interest of the people of Montgomeryshire and Brecon and Radnorshire to have it because it would destroy the countryside there, as well as pollute it. While it may be the party's UK/federal manifesto, it may be against the view of the MPs there and the Welsh section of their party.
Equally, as what has happened this year, MPs sign up to a pledge on behalf of a pressure group like NUS, and then enter into a coalition, where politicies have to be traded off in order to form an agreement for government? MPs on all sides of the chamber signed the pledge. Conservative party policy before and after the coaltion was formed, was to see what the Browne review recommended. Liberal Democrat policy, changed between the two to allow MPs to abstain if they did not like the recommendations of the Browne review, and the government's response to it. Conservative party policy is now clear post-Browne review, 9k fees. But what happens to the three Tories who declared they will stick to their NUS plege, but yet at the same time, they break their party's manifesto pledge, to which they effectively signed in accepting the Conservative Party's name next to their's on the ballot paper, and the pledge that they agreed to as part of the Coalition document. Which pledge do they break? And which one counts as serious wrongdoing, if they are broken? Do both count?
In this blogger's view, an MP should always do what is right for their constituents by serving them first and foremost, and the only call for serious wrongdoing would be a breach of Parliamentary standards/regulations or the law.
The second, and perhaps more poinient flaw in their call for people and students to pledge to declare that they will sign the following:

If my MP votes for higher university tuition fees, I want them recalled, and I pledge not to vote for them at the next General Election.

If my MP votes to scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), I want them recalled, and I pledge not to vote for them at the next General Election

 

Is that only 154 MPs signed the pledge in the first place, so how can any of the remaining 496MPs do anything close to 'serious wrongdoing' no matter which way they vote? And therefore, why should any of those MPs face any sort of challenge under the logic of a recall? Yes, you may not like which way one of those 496MPs vote on the issue of fees (if one so happens to be your MP), but then again, I'm sure you could find another fellow constituent, that is as irate as you about a completely different matter. In either case, what makes you think that now you should have the right to get rid of them before the next general election, compared to previously?

I would also like to point out briefly, that while the Lib Dems have not got their way on the cost of uni, they have got their way in the proposal on everything else in their manifesto for student funding. This includes removing part-time students from paying upfront fees, which can only be good for part-time students. There was also some agreement with the Conservative party manifesto on this matter, but nothing from the Labour Party manifesto.

It is clear from the past that out of the UK's 3 largest parties (in terms of MPs), and Plaid Cymru, the Conservative Party is the only party not to have broken, or to have had any suggestion of a breech, of their party's manifesto promise on fees. Labour breeched their manifesto pledge of 1997 in 97/98, and their 2001 manifesto pledge in 2004/5, Plaid breeched their Welsh Assembly manifesto pledge of 2007 as a result of coalition with Labour in 2009. It has been suggested that MPs will break their pledge, but it remains to be seen as yet. 

On a regional/national note, the Scottish Liberal Democrats managed to abolish fees for Scottish students altogther, and hold off from top-up fees for other students, in Scotland as part of their coalition deal with Labour in the early part of this decade. This was part of the Scottish Liberal Democrats' manifesto.

My view has, and always will be for the foreseeable future, anti-fees. I also believe that NUS is right to campaign against the raising of fees to 9k, however I feel part of their rhetoric and the way they are going about it, is slightly mis-directed, and clearly too partisan, especially when you have the NUS Wales President, Katie Dalton, who is partisan personally, praising the Liberal Democrat MP for Ceredigion Mark Williams, for his efforts, and his clear stance against 9k fees. This is an example of how uniting across party lines is the way forward on issues. I praise both of them on this topic for their cross party efforts.

 

This is the situation, and the facts as I see it.

Thank-you for reading.

The sources I used were:

BBC News Website

NUS Website and their list of vote for student MPs as of 04/05/10

Political Party Manifestoes from their individual party websites.