Thursday was the most alarming day I’ve spent in Westminster. More so than the march against the Iraq war or the Countryside Alliance protest, the atmosphere was intimidating. It felt safer to stay put in the Palace of Westminster, and some Parliamentarians had problems getting in to do their jobs (see Clive Soley’s blog). Like others I am supportive of both the students and the police but was appalled by the actions of the few intent on gratuitous violence.
This was the backdrop to the vote in the Commons. This Tuesday the same orders will be debated and voted on in the Lords. I don’t expect the same attention or scenes in Parliament Square.
This should give the Lords an opportunity to do what it does best. At more distance from both the demonstrations and the whips, we are freer to use our expertise and experience to scrutinise and amend legislation.
This is where we have a problem. These changes are being done by secondary legislation, not by a change in the law through primary legislation. That means that these executive orders are not amendable. We have to accept or reject them. Technically we can take note, pass a motion of regret, or pass a fatal motion to reject them.
But it gets worse. By convention we do not reject executive orders. As the unelected chamber we do not consider that we have the mandate to overturn the executive in that way.
That leaves the Lords with a delicate judgement on Tuesday, if the majority do not support the government’s position. These changes are not implementing a manifesto commitment, indeed they are in direct opposition to a clear election pledge from one of the coalition partners. They will increase the deficit not reduce it (see today’s Independent). On that basis it may be possible to win the argument that this is sufficiently exceptional to overturn the convention.
My fear is that the Lords may decide that the constitutional position means we can’t stop these changes. In that case I don’t think the public will appreciate our dilemma. They will instead question whether there is any point in a second chamber if it can’t halt such a controversial measure that has attracted such acute public interest.
Well as the coalition have broken so many conventions and have sought to change the constitution may be it is the times for the Lords to over turn convention and show some resolve.
Hear Hear.
Do they!?
Seconded.
“Appalled by the actions of the few intent on gratuitous violence.”
Let us hope those on both sides, because it was both, are bought to book though as usual I dare say the affair will be one sided with the Police escaping blame for some of the worst violence and extremely bad tactics which initiated and inflamed the situation.
I fear of course that the House will roll over on this issue which will be a travesty. This is not a cut it is an amputation, it is seperating the poor from education.
A 60% real terms reduction in education capital spending, 80% at Higher Education will simply mean a tremendous loss of college places and University Courses.Whole swathes of work and trade related subjects will be lost.
http://www.education.gov.uk/b0068570/the-importance-of-teaching/school-funding/value-for-money
I am indeed worried on the course my 15 year old has signed up for ever taking place.
EMA is to be abolished, this upto £30 per week for poorer pupils attending further education was a necessity. They have no personal funding other than this.
The Pupil premium, which the Lib Dems are supposed to have worked hard for is to come from existing budgets, which we know are being reduced by 60%. How will that help, it`s £8 per week per pupil whose parents earn under £16k a year. I`d like to know how schools are to find out whose parents earn under that amount, will they now be able to delve into the financial matters of their pupils parents ?
In the time of this reduction in education budget school leaving age is set to rise to 18. How will schools fund these extra years ? There will be few college places so the burden will fall on schools to fund what will be an extra two years education. Where will they gain the extra space and teachers ?
Yet again we have ill thought out legislation being put through, they really cannot add up at all these tories !
First we see Housing hit then education, it really does seem this Government wish to follow the example of the USA. Now some may say this is true it wishes to implement a system of market forces. If that is true here`s a market force for you, get our money back from the banks whom the Government force us to do business with to earn the banks money and then force us to bail out when they mess it up. Let`s have our billions back and put it into education and housing.
The intent by this Government is to create an underclass, to create ghetto`s just like the USA. They are taking the most from education and housing, the plan is clear but this isn`t the USA, the plan will backfire.
As for the Lords on this issue, listen for the publics take on the Lords during next week, you`ll hear the pin drop because they believe you are superfluous or in the pocket of the Government. I don`t envy the position but I do hope there is some sense, free thinking and clear scrutiny of the Governments plans without which the young that debated reform of the Lords last Friday may not have much of a future.
Have the banks had a 60% increase in taxation ? Has the taxation on the super rich risen 60% ? Are we reducing MP`s salaries by 60% ? Have we reduced the Civil Service by 60% ?
To those, I suppose MP`s would state they are all needed ? Well I state that the childrens education is needed more, it is our future. Without education we become no more than a third world country with all the troubles and violence that come with it.
60% is not a cut it is a death blow, 80% to Higher Education virtually eradicates it except perhaps to those who could afford to self fund.
This is wrong and in a few years time when Baroness Deech is still complaining of the bad spelling and grammar and Lord Norton still complaining on Lord Blagger`s math, I will remind you of why.
If you reject this the Commons will do their utmost to destroy the House but isn`t that their intention even without this ?
You are educated people who know the value of education. Educated people like to share what they know, they like to teach, please don`t deny the poor the chance to learn.
60-80% is not a cut, it isn`t just and it isn`t right our future should be that way. Your`s IS an indefensible position, I have always believed that even from such a position the British would stand and fight for what is right and just.
Lord Night may I urge you to speak often and speak loudly and publically about your concerns. Whatever convention dictates I hope – for the sake of future generations of students – that you lobby, argue and vote for what you know is right, please overturn the executive.
well said mate ^ its a total disgrace.
Lord Knight… if the second chamber is not prepared to stand up for what they themselves believe because of the constitutional crisis it may lead to, then is there any point in the second chamber at all?
The entire point is that the 2nd chamber is not elected, and so is not concerned about “re-election” and pleasing party-whips as the lying Lib Dems were, leading to their decision to vote for the proposals. The Lords are not accountable to their parties, but the public, in a way which the commons is not – and so it has failed us.
Well said. The point about the Lords is that they cannot be influenced by the need to win votes/maintain public confidence.
“Whether ministers misled the House of Commons over how progressive the proposals are. In the government’s original response to Browne, Vince Cable cited an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies to buttress his case that the reforms would be good for poor students.
But that analysis was based on the repayment threshold of £21,000 being set in 2012 prices. But in its report last week, the IFS seems to have accepted that Browne set the threshold in 2016 prices, which was the position of Cable’s department all along. Did Cable’s team know that the IFS analysis was based on the wrong information? If so, how could they let their man repeat the IFS conclusions to the House of Commons?”
Even more reason, that because you don’t do anything, or are impotent, that we get rid of the Lords.
600 million over the next 5 years pays for a lot of university education.
As for the reaction of the students, basically they have realised that they are being robbed.
They are being asked to pay for their education up front, and then later the government is going to tax them because they undertook the risk. When people talk about a ‘benefit to society’ they mean we’re going to tax you to the hilt.
Yes and let us not forget that the government also benefits from graduates who go on to achieve high incomes in the form of them becoming high rate tax payers AS WELL as them having to pay for their education in full plus interest. The term “loan shark” is not far from my mind unfortunately.
The independent starts this way.
“Only one in four graduates will pay back the full cost of their tuition fees under the coalition’s new system for financing higher education in England.”
Since the cost hasn’t changed, just the means of funding, the financially sensible thing to do[1] is to curtail 75% of people going to university. After all, if the government funds them, it will too make a loss
[1] The exception to this is cutting costs. However, the Lords don’t get that. Onwards and upwards, more expenses for nothing. Let the impoverished future graduates have the bill. After all, as one Lord claiming that her tax free expenses are recompense for paying taxes, then its the graduates who will have to fund them because they are all on loans
The Independent goes on :
Internal government figures, seen by The Independent on Sunday, reveal that a small minority of students paying fees of up to £9,000 a year are expected ever to pay them off in full. Ministers believe most graduates will spend their whole working lives making monthly payments to cover their loans and interest – without ever being able to settle their debts.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/only-a-quarter-of-all-graduates-will-pay-off-loans-2158168.html
Lord Knight, I agree with David Wilkinson in his comment. The purpose of having a non-elected second chamber is to hold the government in check. Having lived in countries where both chambers are elected has taught me that it is crucial to have an unelected second chamber. That is why we can look to the House of Lords to be unbiased in their decisions.
Secondly, as Parliament serves the people, it is important that the House of Lords look at this situation with the same unbiased and helpful point of view. If there is a way to reduce the budget deficit without having to cut the education budget, then that should be done. It is the public services-education, health, and safety which hold the future of the country. By cutting the education budget and asking students to pay, we are not allowing many students to be able to go to university.
I am simply asking you to look at the situation from a perspective which will help the country. We look to our House of Lords to think about these matters with their expertise with assurance that they will do what is right, not what is popular or what is better for the current government.
God with you.
I agree with Ovais. Change now is so fast not just on this issue – but importantly this is very rushed and very troubling. Independance of the Lords is foremost in my mind at this time
Cost of prisoner per year £37,500
Education FREE
Likely benefit to Nation through taxation little.
Cost of those on dole, single parents and drug addicts….A great deal
Likely benefit to Nation through taxation little.
Cost of photographer for official pictures ???
Likely benefit to Nation through taxation little.
Cost of asylum seekers Vast
Likely benefit to Nation through taxation unknown ?
Cost of student who wants a better life ????
Likely benefit to Nation through taxation great.
Where do all the others payback into the system with interest ?
These changes are being done by secondary legislation, not by a change in the law through primary legislation. That means that these executive orders are not amendable.
Some people evidently get excited by demonstrations.
Carl’s list above is interesting in that it is nearly an account sheet.
It is a storm in a tea cup which effects a volatile group of people; students, 17-25 year olds, easy to rouse to anger.
The rules are going through as orders because they are minor changes.
The change in Libdem leadership judgement was apparently not a minor change. If we have demos every time they make a change for the sake of the Co-alition, we shall have some pretty pictures,shall we not?
The usual arrangements should be observed.
I feel a bit like a character in a science fiction film, but I will say this anyway: Help us, Lord Knight, you’re our only hope.
The government has repeatedly stated that we need not worry about paying tuition fees upfront, as students won’t pay till they earn, and most, even after 30 years, will never pay the full amount. How then can the rise in tuition fees, even at £9000, be a replacement for the 80% cut to teaching, if the government must still front the money and most students will never pay it off?
The Coalition keeps reiterating that students should not worry about debt, because they pay nothing up front, and when we do it will only amount to £4 or £7 or some ludicriously small figure per month. This sounds suspiciously like the loansharks who occasionally come to my door offering an instant approval credit card with a £5000 limit, right now, at 39% APR, with payments of “only” £5 per month.
Students are, fortunately, not swallowing this line any more than I have. They realise the level of debt they will be saddled with, and many — my own child included — will make the decision not to go. And I cannot argue with her, because we do not make enough to afford to help. The problem, of course, is neither are there jobs easily available for this age group.
With no EMA, no university, housing benefits cut, social welfare charities decimated, and very few jobs available what future does this generation have? None, and they know it. The violence at the protests was largely at the hands of young boys from the poorest parts of London, but I fear they were merely the physical expression of the anger felt by many across the country, not all of us young.
The crux of the matter is the scrapping of the EMA, and the savage cuts to the teaching budget. But if the Coalition cannot raise tuition to this level, they will *have* to rethink the 80% teaching cut. There are any number of alternatives besides a graduate tax which have not yet been mooted, involving a fairer balance between cuts and rises, and perhaps a temporary cutback or at least a temporary standstill of student numbers. But none of these alternatives will be discussed if the rise and the scrapping of EMA are allowed to simply pass through.
Lords has the power to bring sense to these matters, to stop the onward rush to push through legislation which will not have a beneficial effect on the country’s present or future finances, and will effectively consign the vast majority of an entire generation to ignorance and waste of their energy, curiosity, intelligence and talents. We need that if we are ever to recover economically and psychologically as a nation. We need that if we are not to see the fury and frustration of that small portion of the demonstration on Thursday spread itself outward to the entire population.
I pray you all use that power well.
Full tuition fees have NO democratic mandate. At every stage, they have been foist upon us by blatant deception. Had lower house members told their electors what they planned, they would never have been given the chance. The fury people feel over being repeatedly taken for fools by their representatives is why such little quarter is given on matters such as expenses. It is also why members of The Lords have a bounden duty to block the fees legislation. It simply has no democratic validity.
I wonder why one has to feel one lacks a Mandate just because one is not elected. Isn’t the benefit of the Lords that they aren’t bound by voters? And one must wonder why we see Democracy as in and of itself a Virtue, when it can easily go wrong.
The problem is there is no cash. It’s gone. Caput.
The Lords allowed Brown and Blair to spend like crazy. In part because they were the receipiants of that largess. What with the expenses, the second homes, the wine cellars, the odd 100 million for a new building, a house’s worth of clothing, … they are responsible.
However, what you want isn’t going to happen. There is no money.
Fair? No. This generation of politicians have bigged it up, leaving future generations with the bill.
The argument that there is no money left is very weak. The French an the Germans both have bigger debts than us and are both investing in higher education. It is all about choices, what we choose to spend out money. Education along with health should be considered the most valuable things within our society and they are the future of our nation.
I believe i have a social contract with this state, i give up many of my rights and pay tax and for this i expect the state to provide certain things. One of these is education, i am not sure i want to live in a country where i believe the state has broken this contract. Please stop this.
What an ignoramus you are. “There is no cash”? Did you learn economics from the back of a cornflakes packet or what?
from this Sunday’s Independent:
The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the Government will have to borrow £10.7bn to pay out student loans in 2015-16, compared with £4.1bn at the moment – with all but £1bn of the £6.6bn increase due to the tuition fees reforms.
You aren’t bound by the Salisbury convention which says you can’t overturn policies in the manifesto. In fact, this goes directly against one of the manifesto pledges.
You may not have the numbers though. But I would love the Lords to kick it back – if only on the basis that it’s all gone far too fast and needs more time. Could you do that? Bit like the good fairy not quite undoing the bad fairy’s work but delaying it?
I totally agree that this has, “gone far too fast”. As one mp raised in the Commons during Thursday’s debate. Surely the point of our system of legislation is that issues are thoroughly and properly debated and the effects of legislation on members of the public considered before implementation? What the current government has done on this issue totally undermines this.
The argument that there is no money left is very weak. The French an the Germans both have bigger debts than us and are both investing in higher education.
Has it occurred to you that they are bust too?
yet they are investing in education, because it is an investment in the future… I don’t understand your point. If they are “bust” how can they be investing in education?
The point about the Lords is that they cannot be influenced
==============
Lord Truscott and co offered to change legislation for cash. They can be influenced.
Lord Knight, you’ve obviously touched a nerve with lots of people – judging by the comments here.
While I won’t say you owe it to them to reply (you probably don’t) it would be REALLY interesting if you did.
Lord Blagger, may I respectfully say that the French and the Germans have understood what the Chinese and Indians had understood a long time ago, and what Great Britain had understood until our elected ministers changed it. What they had understood was the fact that education is our future. If you take away education, then you take away literacy. By taking away literacy, you welcome the reduced numbers of people with degrees. To see the result of this, you only have to look as far as the developing nations. Take Pakistan, for example. Having lived there for seventeen years and seen all there is to see in that nation, I can tell you that the biggest difference between the Pakistanis and the British is that the British are smart enough to keep their education at a lower cost.
If you take away education, you invite the problems that any third world country now faces.
I ask the Lords to take into consideration that which is in the best interests of their own people. It is far better that the final decision taken is for the people.
You’re confusing my posts reading into them something that isn’t there.
There is no problem about education.
There is a problem with education and b*&^%r the cost.
For example, lets spend 200 billion a year on the students. We load up on debt, lots of debts. They can have a gold plated Rolls-Royce education.
Mind you, it might be in media studies, and they might end up working in a call centre. Quite how they will pay that debt off is beyond me.
If a student want to pay for their media studies degree they can. I don’t see why the checkout girl in Tesco’s should be made poorer.
Cue the refrain. But she benefits when they earn more and pay more in taxes.
That reveals the intent. The intent is to make the student pay and take all the risk, and then the state to take away the benefits afterwards.
Students have cottoned on to the con.
Lord Blagger – please understand that the Tescos checkout girl you mention may one day wish to take advantage of publicly funded HE. She may want her children to have that option. As with the NHS we all benefit from having it in place – our HE system should be equally valued. The funding question is a complete red herring. Government has simply gone beyond its mandate. Furthermore the Browne report (or its follow up) is a failure as the balance of funding is completley being placed on next generation (businesses and altrusim should also be contributing). This one directional funding burden for something that helps us all is unfair in the extreme.. HE is a sector we should value and invest in.
Please Lords, do something extraordinary tomorrow and vote this proposal down.
Tripling fees, while simultaneously cutting the teaching grant in Higher Education by 100% in Arts & Humanities and 80% across the board is an unprecedented blow to the future of our children and hence the country.
Please Lords, do something extraordinary tomorrow and vote this proposal down.
Any sense that education can be for the common good, where students pay for most of their higher education while we all contribute something towards it too (as is the case now) will be removed and we will be turning our backs on our children and turning our universities into training centres for the market place.
Please Lords, do something extraordinary tomorrow and vote this proposal down.
We will also be saddling the next generations with life long debt and excluding very many from the possibility of obtaining mortgages or social mobility
Please Lords, do something extraordinary tomorrow and vote this proposal down.
The new proposals will even cost more by the looks of things, so why of why is it being allowed to proceed?
Please Lords, do something extraordinary tomorrow and vote this proposal down.
Tesco checkout girl may want to go to University. likewise so might her children. Ordinary people are scared by these levels of debt and don’t want to be ‘in debt’ to the state for the rest of their working lives. Browne’s report is only a report. It did not resolve business sector contributions to HE. It has done nothing to capitalise on / take forward US style philanthropy. It has been mis-used as an opportunity to cut public funds and place the burden on todays children and their children. This is called sustainable !?? well blow me – look up definitions of sustainable development and the concept of inter-generational equity. This is unfair and has no madate. It is being advanced as a premature early action / piecemeal approach to HE reform.
Sir;
Clearly there needs to be reform in the funding of HE. However, the proposed changes are highly questionable in their long-term fiscal, intellectual, and cultural benefits. Does this not merit further examination given the real risks these changes pose. Not only would a generation suffer, but at a time when the balance of power in the world is shifting. More time is needed to review the changes to HE. I would suggest that voting down the proposal would be in the best interests of the individual, the family and the country.
Good luck Lord Knight, please do what you can today. Thankyou for a very interesting analysis of the position of the Lords in this process.
I hope the House of Lords reject these proposals and I say that as a Conservative Party member. As some Conservative MPs said the Government have failed to make their case as people know that these plans will deter some.
Lord Blagger, I have just read the entire information regarding the budget. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you in my comments earlier, when I thought I knew all about the education proposal, and actually did not. Taking in view the entire debt problem and the importance of education, my question to you, Sir, is this:
Is there any other way to reduce the budget deficit than by cutting the education budget? If there is no better measure, then I agree that this bill is in the best interests of the people.
I am a student as well, and I can only hope that we students will all one day benefit our nations and their investments in us.
s there any other way to reduce the budget deficit than by cutting the education budget? If there is no better measure, then I agree that this bill is in the best interests of the people.
So what’s the deficit? The government spins it as a percentage of GDP. Just like applying for a mortgage and including your neighour’s income. ie. The government doesn’t own all income. The correct approach is to use the percentage of over spend relative to tax income. That puts the deficit at 30% of government income. In other words to break even cuts of 30% are necessary.
You also have to be careful when politicians say growth is the answer. Since the government generates no income, growth really means growth in taxes. It can only close the gap using two approaches. Cutting more or taxing more.
So where does this leave the students. It’s cutting funding. Students have to take the risk. Ok, there are benefits to a higher education. However, the government wants those too. ie. It doesn’t want to fund, but it wants the benefits. An example of an increase in taxation for future students, and a cut in funding. It should be one or the other.
So, 30% is 165 billion. What can be cut and what can be taxed.
You might think, we if we get a million back to work we can solve the problem. However for each unemployed person going onto a min wage job (likely for most), you get 11,000 back. That’s 11 billion. Hardly a dent in the hole.
You could sell some silver, like the High speed rail link to the channel. They did that the other day, but they had spend all the cash on the deficit 4 days later. It’s all gone.
The UK is at it’s limit of taxation. Companies are already moving. Google for example has hopped to Switzerland. 28% of nothing is nothing.
It’s screwed. You’re going to be screwed. Politicians including the Lords are still on a spending spree. Each lord cost over 2,000 pounds a day to run (Total costs / number of sitting days / average attendance). They really don’t care about you.
I’m still a student. I’ve one year left to go. Education is important. However there is a massive generational transfer going on. All the Lords have connived in dumping vast debts onto the younger generation. 6.8 trillion in total. Work out your share.
On top of this, 1/2 the people in the UK have savings of 5,000 or less. Lots don’t have any pensions. You’re also on the hook to bail them out come their retirement.
It’s (put your choice of 4 letter word).
The Lords have not done what they are paid for, to regulate the Commons. They have aided and abetted them, because its been in their personal financial interest to do so.
Good luck Lord Knight, please do what you can today.
And don’t think for a moment about all the murder and mayhem while you were a minister for the war in Iraq, or the fat fees you may now command in the private sector arms businesses.
The public are yet again being conned to fall in behind Government.
The misleading lie is it`s just £9000 per year and with a degree you`ll be able to pay that off easily.
The fact is the £9000 will have interest in the form of being Retail Price index linked, presently 3% above inflation.
Only one quarter of all students are expected to ever pay the sum off, three quarters will have over thirty thousand pounds over their heads for thirty years. Just how many would like that sort of debt that they know would be around for that length of time.
So isn`t it about time someone came clean and admitted publicly it isn`t £9000 and as well as paying possibly a higher rate of tax those with a degree will be paying inflation long after. Some infact, statistically are liable to die in debt.
“Like others I am supportive of both the students and the police but was appalled by the actions of the few intent on gratuitous violence.”
Like others I am generally in favour of the principle of civil government, but am appalled by the actions of the few intent on gratuitous class warfare.
“But was appalled by the actions of the few intent on gratuitous violence.”
Yesterday were hundreds of peaceful protests about EMA removal, mainly in schools. Was it in the news ? Did the Politicians even realise ?
The answer of course is no!
Electors come hear and many other places to express their views. Are they heard ?
The answer of course is no!
As violence is the answer of the establishment to keeping order so the answer to corruption and state theft must also be violence. If no one listens to voices of the people there is no choice but to overturn and overthrow.
Hear hear!