Tuition fees: Labour’s chance to start afresh

By Wes Streeting / @wesstreeting

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” – Animal Farm, George Orwell

The closing line of Orwell’s classic short novel could easily have been written about our governing coalition. No u-turn too big, no betrayal of party or principle or people too far. Vince Cable may not have been at the despatch box to announce a trebling of tuition fees today, but the Liberal Democrat grassroots must feel sick to their stomachs that a department headed up by one of their own is not only abandoning one of their central pledges, but going further to marketise and privatise our universities than might ever have been imaginable just six months ago.

Herein lies the dilemma for Labour; six months ago it was conceivable that a re-elected Labour government might also have opted to increase fees. The figure of £7,000 was cited privately in Whitehall. Those of us who opposed higher fees in 2004 warned of a slippery slope to a real market. In spite of a huge rebellion in the most toxic environment on the eve of the publication of the Hutton Review, the government scraped through and broke a manifesto commitment in the process. The Browne Review itself has New Labour’s fingerprints all over it. Let us not forget that Peter Mandelson decided the membership of the Browne review group, packing it with pro-market voices and vested interests. Voices critical of the market, like mine and those of vice chancellors who saw the risks associated with such a model, were excluded.

There is a risk that the ghosts of Labour’s past will haunt our response to the government’s proposals today. Instead it should be Ed Miliband’s opportunity to shine. I didn’t vote for Ed, but on the issue of higher education funding he – and Ed Balls – had my unequivocal support. He didn’t vote for tuition fees and top-up fees; he wasn’t even an MP. His stance drew support from members of Young Labour and Labour Students and caught the imagination and attention of students beyond our party. He is right to support the principles behind the graduate tax. The review did not consider the full range of models and alternatives available.

Today is Labour’s opportunity to start afresh. We have much to be proud of; universities received huge levels of investment under Labour, we were right to widen participation and we were right to expect graduates to make some contribution to the cost of their studies. But we were wrong to base the graduate contribution on faulty market principles. Ed made this case in the leadership election and his shadow cabinet must get behind that position now.

In the coming weeks and months, constituency parties must expose the broken promises of the Liberal Democrats. In university towns and cities we should support student campaigns. My neighbouring MP, Lee Scott (pictured), is one of the few Tory MPs who signed the NUS pledge against higher fees. I’m looking forward to making his life a living misery between now and Christmas, fighting an active media campaign locally, delivering targeted direct mail to his constituents and laying the ground for a Labour victory in Ilford North at the next general election.

Later today, the new NUS president, Aaron Porter, will be writing for LabourList about what today’s announcement means for students. It ought to lead to the annihilation of Liberal Democrats in seats they took from Labour on the same issue in 2005. That will only happen if the new generation presents a new approach on higher education funding. A good start would be to sign and honour the NUS pledge and unite with MPs from other parties who do the same.

Wes Streeting is a Labour and Co-operative councillor in the London Borough of Redbridge and is a former NUS President