Party Lines: October 12th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Much of today’s political news and opinion has revolved around Lord Browne’s review of higher education funding, which has proposed higher fees for university students.

John Denham, speaking in his new role as shadow secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, laid out his views on university funding in an interview with Sky News this morning:

“Surely what we want is that each student can go to the best university for them and the best course for them. If they end up in a situation where they feel they can’t do that, they have to shop around for a course that is cheaper, you’re simply not going to make the most of their talent.”

Denham was more critical when speaking to BBC’s Daily Politics show at lunchtime, describing the government plans as “a different ball game”:

“The people who will be hit hardest will be the people who go into the typical middle income graduate jobs. They will pay for longer and many of them will be in the position of still paying when their children are at school. Those on higher incomes will not put a fair amount into the system.”

“You are not talking about students making a contribution to paying the cost of their education, you’re talking about students covering the entire cost of their education and that’s an entirely different ball game.”

Labour’s candidate for London Mayor Ken Livingstone joined in the chorus of criticism against the plans – pointing out that a government which talks so much about government debt seems to have little problem with graduate debt:

“The government talks about the need to reduce the national debt, despite the damage its approach will mean to the economy, but has no hesitation in ratcheting up graduate debt. The government is going to make students pay for an economic situation that bankers, not students, created.”

“This policy will deter poorer students and squeeze very hard those on middle incomes once they have graduated.”

Former Education minister David Blunkett, who began the process of education reform under Tony Blair was equally scathing – saying the government has “the vision of a bat”:

“The Tories have already performed a volte-face on their previous policy. This leaves only the Labour Party with any credibility on student funding and the future of our great universities.”

“It is my strong belief that reverting to a real rate of interest transforms the student finance system into a market-driven approach which will distort what is available by allowing the better-off to access more favourable terms – for example, by re-mortgaging their property or arranging for beneficial terms outside the student loan framework. These moves are not available to less well-off students and their families.”

“This is a short-sighted, unimaginative and short-term government with the vision of a bat and the antennae of a mollusc.”

Meanwhile in parliament, Alan Johnson had his first sparring session with his opposite number George Osborne, ahead of next week’s Comprehensive Spending Review. Johnson attacked Osborne’s budget, saying:

“The Right Honourable member (Osborne) says the deficit was wrong and his emergency budget measures were unavoidable. Actually I believe it was the other way round. The deficit was unavoidable to avoid economic meltdown and his budget proposals were entirely wrong. Wrong because they would have, according to IFS, had two and a half times the adverse affects on the poor as the richest in our society. And wrong because he is looking to cut public spending before there is any momentum to private sector spending in our economy.”