VAT rises and tuition fees

Over the last few weeks I was ask a few questions by the Bracknell Standard as part of the papers 'What does Bracknell think' weekly panel.

 

 

First up VAT rise;

 

VAT has risen from 17,5 per cent to 20 per cent, is this a fair way for the government to try to reduce the national deficit or will it put people off buying consumer goods?

 

 

And my answer

 

Surely it depends on what you buy and how much you spend. Children's cloths and Food do not have VAT added to them yet they still seem expensive.
 
At least if someone who is wealthy and spends their wealth won't be able to avoid this tax on their larger purchases, like they can with their income. The rise ensures that we are all paying the national debt off not just some and therefore gives us all ownership of it.

 

Governments often choose VAT because its the tax that provides the quickest way of raising funds. If the deficit reduces sooner than expected, expect to see this cut sooner than expected (I hope).

 

 

And secondary tuition fees

 

The question;

 

The gist is that universities will now be able to charge up to £9,000 per year in tuition fees. The Government claims that there are a raft of measures to make sure that the new system is actually fairer - for a bit more detail, have a look at this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11483638
 
We want to know what people's feelings on the issue are. There are many facets to it - is the system fair? Have the Lib Dems betrayed voters? Will the new system benefit the country? Should potential students start looking into alternative futures?

 
And my reply;

 

I am a Lib Dem activist and I'm not looking forward to selling the tuition fee rise on the doorstep. As someone who believes in free education I do not agree with such a large rise. But I do understand why there has been an increase. The increases aside, I do feel the new system is fairer. you don't have to pay it back, What you pay back is linked to your earnings. This should not put people of from going to university once students examine the system in detail.
 
I do not feel the Lib Dems have sold out, I feel we are taking a huge political risk for the good of the country. A minority Conservative government would of lend to another election and 12 months of indecision.

Some Lib Dems planned to abandon tuition fees pledge

Lets face it. Lib Dems members knew one thing about coalitions. The minor party generally does badly in the next general election. So we knew this was going to be hard. But damn it, this is very difficult indeed.

The headline should really read 'A small group of Lib Dems planned to abandon the fees pledge'. This is because the same Lib Dems who were part of the negotiation team are the same Lib Dems who knew what was in the negociation document. So it's really they who planned to abandon the pledge. The rest of us had no idea.

Nick Clegg did try to get the Liberal Democrats to drop this policy and he failed. Because the Liberal Democrats are a democratic party it meant that he didn't have that much control over policy and has to accept some polices voted on by the party members.

As I said in A pledge is a pledge. End of . There is not much defence to a pledge. To pictures of you standing infront of a pledge, when knowing that the two parties you may have to negociate with both support tuition fees and won't pull back on it. Knowing times are hard and this would not be affordable. This was the big error. Perhaps the biggest error Clegg and the negociation team made. For a group of people so clever it is quite shocking that they didn't back away some MP's including themselves from this pledge.

It is right in a first past the post election system for the rest of the party to remain ignorant of the negociation document because you have to fight for a government not for a coalition. However I think now we have had a recent coaltion perhaps we should release some details of our priorities for negociation before the next election so atleast people will understand the difference between negotiable policy and non negotiable policy. I still feel that the Lib Dems where caught between a rock and a hard place after the electorate cast their vote.

I would also add that perhaps a policy to scrap tuition fees was not as fair as it first seems. Me and my brother did not go to university but my mum still paid through her taxes for others to go to uni. This doesn't seem fair. So I think it is more fair for graduates to pay something torwards their university education. The new system is like a back door graduate tax. It is a progressive system. The main problem with it is the cost or rather the cuts to higher education. I agree with some cuts because I don't think the state should pay the full cost but its the high level of cuts that have made the new system so expensive.


It's worth listening to Stephen Nolan on last night show with Rob Wilson MP who wrote the book where this detail is revealed. Iain Dale, Mehdi Hasan, Dr Evan Harris and Helen Duffett discussing this topic from about 1.45 hours in. click here.

Can taxpayers afford free tuition fees?

BillBloggs sent the following email to tuition@libdems.org.uk where he gives a different opinion to the one I expressed in A pledge is a pledge end of .
 
 
Dear Nick,

Under these dire financial  circumstances, and following receipt of your very well put explanation and arguments for abandoning the LD election pledge to abolish Tuition Fees, you do have my full support.

Free education to degree level is a great idea - IFour country (i.e. us taxpayers - not government )can truly afford it.
Please don't let this coalition government offer anything else for free that we taxpayers cannot afford!

 

Anything "free" always seems to be a great idea to voters - but why do these same voters keep forgetting that when any political party or government promises anything for "free" to us all - it is all of the taxpayers in the UK that are going to have to pay for it!
I don't!

 

Surely telling us taxpayers what it would cost to do this now and what we will have to do without on top of all the other cuts coming to us is the final clinching argument that you could put to persuade all those complaining now to be quiet?

 

Mind you -Scrapping Trident would have gone a long way to offset the cuts elsewhere wouldn't it? However, I think that money if saved would be far still better spent elsewhere(e.g. green infrastructure hence green job creation) rather than on tuition fees.

 

Frankly, I have always wondered how we managed to provide a university education for free for so long in the past.
We must have been a very wealthy country once!

 

I guess that is also why we have been so generous with our benefits system in the past too? Little knowing of course how that was going to backfire by creating so many dependants who have found it easier not to work and milk the system etc.

 

I would like to add that, IMHO, a university education is being overrated in the UK anyway.
All young people need jobs to go to, and a degree is wasted time and money if there aren't any jobs around that need you to have one.

 

A hell of a lot of degree qualified people are in lowly jobs in the UK already. Time and Money wasted, wasn't it?
(One begins to think any government support given for further education was a way to get people of the unemployment and benefit lists for a while!)

 

What we really do need badly in this country is a restoration of our manufacturing industries, a boost to our farming and agriculture, loads of green jobs, and far more people in on -job training and apprenticeships - rather than becoming overqualified or qualified in unwanted subjects in universities.

 

I also think that further education, particularly at degree level, could and should be financed much more by businesses and industry, and thereby the qualifications gained would be linked more closely to their needs. After all, they would get the benefit of these more highly and correctly educated people as a resource pool.

 

Please bear in mind that Practical skills have a very important place in our society too, and please note that many of those people that we are now trying to get off of benefits and into work (Hooray for Ian Duncan Smith!) are just the sort of people who can be trained to do them.

 

Surely this is what should be happening - rather than too freely letting the Eastern Europeans and other Immigrants come here and take jobs away from our own people?

 

I write as retired Chartered Mechanical Engineer who got the necessary qualifications the hard way, not via a university degree but as an apprentice doing days and many evenings at Technical College, while I also gaining many sound and invaluable  practical skills at the same time.

 

I have had 40 years experience in industry, and I have worked with and employed many degree level and highly practically skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled people from all walks of life, during my career.

 

IMHO this country needs to become far more self sufficient all round again, like it once was.

What we are doing with continuous population growth and relying on getting ever more economic growth and increasing globalisation everywhere to support it all is simply not sustainable - certainly not for much longer.

 

The planet we live on is of a fixed size with finite resources, so this must be so.

 

Billbloggs

 

 

Todays link is to Lib Dem Voice who also has a opinion article from Simon Kaye who is in favour of the Browne report.

A pledge is a pledge. End of

I agree with some elements of Lord Brownes report into the future cost of tuition fees and university funding. For example I am pleased with the recommendations like scrapping upfront fees for part time students, protecting fees from certain medical and science and other important courses. I also agree with 30% of the poorest graduates paying less and could even go so far to say I like the idea that some of those Mickey Mouse degrees would not be taken up.

I can even understand the reasons why the coalition will increase fees but what I don't understand is going back on a pledge. Why sign a pledge if you know its not possible to act on it. I just can't reconcile this point. I can defend most things on the doorstep, but I don't think I can defend this one, it just wont wash will it? Will the voter still understand that it is still Liberal Democrat policy to scrap tuition fees? Even if our leaflets confirm this they simply won't believe it.

It's common for parties to go back on manifestos like when Tony Blair reversed the Labour Party's 2001 manifesto promise not to introduce "top-up fees" in the first place. Manifestos of course do not allow for changing circumstances and lack the flexibly required in government. I understand that being in government means making hard decisions and choices. But I think this is different. This is a pledge. A pledge to me is something you have to stick to.

Student voters and their parents won't understand that Liberal Democrats abstained from the vote, this does not make everything alright. Even if your local Liberal Democrat MP voted against and increase in fees many will view the Liberal Democrats as a whole as going back on their pledge. Therefore I think voting against an increase is still not enough. Liberal Democrats should not agree to an increase and Cable should no be putting forward an increase. Perhaps it would of been better for a Conservative minister who didn't pledge to not increase tuition fees or scrap them (and some did) to be given this task, politically that would of made more sense.

Needless to say, I am not very happy with the endorsement of Lord Brownes report by Vince Cable and Nick Clegg. I will wait to see what the coalition government decides to do and I will assess then what action if any I may take.

In the meantime I recommend you right to your MP on this issue and others may want to join Lib Dems against scrapping the cap.

Today's link is to Jennie Rigg has written a letter on this point to Nick Clegg see here

Media get graduate tax wrong again

I keep hearing about how Liberal Democrats want a graduate tax. This came up again on today's BBC Breakfast during the interview with David Cameron.

I feel I must correct the BBC on this. Liberal Democrats still want to scrap tuition fees and do not want a graduate tax. It is not Liberal Democrat policy. But it is a proposal Lib Dems would be willing to support.

The graduate tax is a coalition proposal put forward by Vince Cable as a progressive form of tax. It's an idea to help fund higher education when austerity measures are required. It is not a permanent solution but a necessary measure in these times.

Another misunderstanding is that some believe the graduate tax proposal is on top of tuition fees. It's not. The Graduate tax is a replacement for tuition fees and is not in addition too them.

I really wish the media would try to understand the difference between a coalition proposal and party policy. At the moment the media seem happen to confuse the public.

Details can be found on this money Q&A: What would a graduate tax mean?