No higher fees if Lib Dem MPs stick to their word – the student movement is watching closely

By Aaron Porter / @AaronPorter

“We will resist, vote against, campaign against, any lifting of that cap”. Not me, speaking passionately in opposition to the plans “that, as far as I can see, the other parties are cooking up” for a further hike in the fee cap – but Nick Clegg, addressing NUS Conference just a few weeks before the general election in May.

I won’t bombard you with further, equally unequivocal, warnings as to the basic unfairness inherent in the tuition fee model and the dangers that a further rise in the fee cap would bring – from Vince Cable speaking at St Mary’s University Students’ Union a week before the election, to Chris Huhne’s article on his personal website (still there), to Danny Alexander at the NUS Scotland lobby against the proposal for a rise in the fee cap.

But the simple fact is that opposition to any rise in tuition fees, and indeed a belief that they should be abolished entirely, was one of the central messages of the Liberal Democrat election campaign – and it was a policy that gained them massive support from students.

Let us take the example of Norwich South. In this constituency, with a significant student population, both NUS and the University of East Anglia Students’ Union campaigned strongly for parliamentary candidates there to sign our pledge in opposition to a rise in fees. Former Education secretary Charles Clarke refused to sign the pledge, while the Lib Dem candidate Simon Wright not only signed the pledge but made this a key election issue there. In the end, Simon Wright won by just over 300 votes – and, as Charles Clarke argued a few weeks ago on BBC’s ‘This Week’, it is highly probable that the pledge turned out to be the decisive factor there.

Now, of course I don’t think one needs to have signed a pledge for support for higher fees to be profoundly wrong – and all politicians who support the government’s proposals for a tripling in the fee cap, predicated upon and justified through the withdrawl of public funding for all but a few ‘strategically important’ subjects, should be roundly condemned. In voting for fees of up to £9,000 a year they will all act to unfairly hit future generations for the mistakes of others, severely hamper efforts to widen participation (the government’s proposals here are wooly at best), and profoundly undermine the sector more widely through the dangerous introduction of markets in an arena for which they are wholly inappropriate.

But the fact remains that Liberal Democrats gained significantly from their opposition to higher fees – and we are now in a position where if they all stick to the promise they made to students only a few months ago, a rise in fees cannot happen. It is unsurprising, therefore, that all eyes will be on them over the next few days and weeks – they have a golden opportunity to stand up for students and the sector against what are deeply damaging proposals. Failure to take this up will not be forgotten.

Aaron Porter is President of the National Union of Students (NUS)