Miliband sets down a marker on education cuts and fees

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

After some of the (perhaps less than welcome) interventions from Alan Johnson on tuition fees lately, Ed Miliband has put down a clear marker in the Observer that he sees these fee rises as unacceptable and favours a graduate tax. Miliband also took the opportunity to confirm that a graduate tax proposal will be part of Labour’s policy review:

“That is why there is such a strong case for moving towards a graduate tax and why we will develop a proposal in our policy review. Any proposal will be underpinned by an independent assessment showing that it will improve social mobility and life chances and not weaken them.”

Miliband also uses the tuition fee hike (along side the abolition of EMA and AimHigher) as a prism through which to examine the negative impact that coalition policies will have on social mibility – which Nick Clegg suggested last week would be the new test for fairness. And in words that may boost Labour’s support amongst students, Miliband refers to some of the most severe cuts as “cultural vandalism”:

“Their justification for this extraordinary reform is that it is unavoidable. They say the deficit must be cut, so university budgets must be slashed and fees must rise to fill the gap.”

“But in a spending review with an average cut of 11%, the government has chosen to remove a breathtaking 80% from university teaching budgets. Even within the parameters of their own reckless approach to deficit reduction, the coalition could have proposed fee increases of hundreds of pounds, not up to £6,000. This is not unavoidable – it is a political choice, and a deeply damaging one. The proposals amount to a rejection of the longstanding recognition of our collective responsibility for higher education.”

“And in an example of particular cultural vandalism, three-year humanities courses will no longer receive any public money for teaching at all.”

This subject has clearly been identified by Ed and his team as something which will define the coalition (at least in this early part of the parliament). Expect to see Labour heavily focussed on the negative impacts of a tuition fee hike between now and the vote in parliament on Thursday.