Liam Byrne hints at graduate tax proposals

On higher education fees, the Labour leadership have been relatively quiet.

At 2011 Labour conference, Miliband previously talked about cutting tuition fees from £9,000 a year to £6,000. But with the 2014 conference behind us and the general election 7 months away, there’s still no mention of what Labour’s policy on fees is.

In an interview with The House, Liam Byrne, Shadow Minister for Universities, Science and Skills has broken this silence. Sort of.

He made it clear that the reason Labour are yet to finalise their plans on tuition fees is that they don’t want to make false promises, he said “I know that’s a really simple answer, but the Lib Dems were punished so badly for lying and breaking their word, and we’re just not going to make that mistake. We’re not going to go off half-cocked on university finances – we’re going to get this absolutely right.”

So, he went on to explain: “We’d love to bring the cost down. But students and their parents, as well as the university community, will ask us how we’re going to pay for it. So until we’ve dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’…”

Byrne previously said Labour’s “long term aim” was a graduate tax. When asked about this he said “we’re going to nail that down for the manifesto”.

He went on to remind us that his support a graduate tax dated back to his days as leader of Manchester Student Union “We became the first students’ union in the country to publish proposals and an argument for a graduate tax, so I’ve long been a supporter of the idea. Turning it into action is complex, especially when your debt-to-GDP ratio is nearly 80%. So this is an idea with many virtues, but actually what people want is a plan.”

Either way, on higher education fees, we hope a plan is coming soon…