Local people may have received a glossy leaflet from the Labour party yesterday. I know I did. Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that it didn’t mention Bury, Prestwich or St Mary’s once, nor did it talk about the Labour candidate or how he intends to help Prestwich despite not living in it. It did though talk lots about the Lib Dems, and particularly mentioned our stance on tuition fees.

As I’ve said many times, I think that when we broke our promise not to raise fees it was the worst thing we’ve done. There are rights and wrongs to every bit of policy, including that one, but what no political party should do is promise one thing and then do the opposite. That’s why I would never have voted to raise fees without a clear display that the public wanted it, even though I think the system as proposed by the coalition is better than the one we have now. I still think university should be funded by the state.

That’s obviously not good enough for Labour, as yesterday’s leaflet shows. And Ivan Lewis, Bury South’s Labour MP, still hasn’t told anyone what he thinks should be done to sort out the issue either. He is very much against the government’s policy, that much became clear four months ago when he wrote to the Bury Times and me criticising the government’s policy.

What wasn’t clear then, and still isn’t clear is how he would fund higher education. We know he voted to introdcue tuition fees, and then to treble them, whilst part of the Labour government. But when the coalition increased them still further, he was apoplectic with rage. I asked him many times what he favoured instead, but he isn’t telling me or you.

Today the Labour Party leader Ed Miliband joined the criticism of the government. He’s welcome to do so of course, but again he offers no detailed alternative. Interestingly, he has once again indicated an interest in a graduate tax. It’s interesting because this and the coalition’s policy are almost identical. It would be crazy for a party so angry at the government’s plans to support a graduate tax. I’d ask Ivan Lewis what he thinks, but I suspect he wouldn’t tell.

Consider the similarities – The government’s plans see tuition fees paid up front by the government and then paid back by students as an extra tax on their wages once they graduate.

Miliband’s Graduate Tax proposals, whilst not detailed at all as yet, would be exactly the same thing overall, i.e. no up-front payment by students, and then an additional tax paid for out of income. It would be the government’s policy, with a different name.

Labour argue that their level of tax would be lower because state funding for universities wouldn’t be cut as much under a Labour government. But, again, Labour are scant on detail. Not cutting university funding means one of three things – either cutting something else instead, putting a tax up, or paying the deficit off slower and thus paying even more than the £120m in debt interest payments hat they country is paying every single day.

Until they come clean on their overall tax/cuts policy, the detail will be obscured. But the principle is the same – Ed Miliband has once again come out in favour of taxing graduates in exactly the same way as the government propose, just as he did prior to the election when his Labour party set up the Browne review which led to the government’s policy.

Once again it’s become clear that one of the great tragedies of the university funding debate is how it’s being presented to students. Labour want a Graduate Tax, and even the NUS have suggested the same. But both are rabidly against a government fee proposal that is more or less exactly the same thing, because it has been appallingly branded as a £9k a year fee. Would-be students are being put off. Even the Helena Kennedy Foundation, a charity encouraging social mobility, have said that misinformation and ignorance about finance are putting students off going to university.

Students are frightened by big fee numbers, even if the reality is different. And they are comforted by the idea of a graduate tax becuase it sounds safer, even if it’s the same thing as the government’s plan. I wonder sometimes whether if the government had called its fee rise the Buttercup and Smiley Sunshine Plan whether it’d have got an easier ride…

The government have been foolish not to press the case for their policy and make students aware of what the reality is. Labour have been complicit in this and, as Ivan Lewis and yesterday’s glossy Labour leaflet has demonstrated, have been happy to scaremonger and put young people off going to university to score political points. But, on the off chance that there are any would-be students reading this, they should know that the government’s plans will leave them better off at university and every month for years afterwards than the current system. I graduated in 2002, and by now I’d be £5,000 better off under the proposed system had it existed back then. That’s a chunk of a deposit on a house.

So please don’t fall for the Labour half-truths. Until Ivan Lewis and Labour come up with an actual alternative policy, they have nothing and don’t deserve your votes. If you don’t want to vote Lib Dem because of the broken promise then fair enough, but to me there’s 99% of the party left even if that 1% got spoiled. With Labour, all they have is an angry, glossy leaflet. And what use is that? 

Rick

Last night’s Scrutiny committee finally came to a view on the matter of introducing a standard charging framework for Children’s Centres.

It was the third time the issue had been discussed, but on the previous two occasions the Cabinet member had been so flummoxed by our questions that he had to go away, have a lie down, and come back with more information.

This time he came back with more information than we could possibly ever want, outlining dozens of other Authorities’ approaches to charging, and pretty much every detail of what happens at our own Childrens Centres (including the disturbing “Bumps for Babies” classes which I was relieved to discover aren’t what I thought they were at first).

The proposed policy change will see a standard charging procedure introduced for some non-core activities. A number of committee members were concerned by this. Some were concerned at the prospect of charging at all, and others by the inequalities which may arise because Childrens Centres get to keep income from charging for themselves (so those in well off areas can recoup more money and improve, perhaps leaving those serving poorer areas behind).

In the end the committee used what limited powers it has to recommend that the Cabinet member monitor the impact that the charges will have, and report back in six months with an action plan should inequalities be on the rise.

What we also noted was that Bury is one of only two Authorities to be proceeding with a standard pricing framework, and that there wasn’t much in the way of evidence to suggest that this was necessarily a good thing. I hope that the policy turns out not to do what we fear it might, because Childrens Centres are a credit to Bury and to the last Labour government which introduced them. It would be a shame to tinker with them in a negative way.

Rick

Liberal Democrat Children and Families Minister, Sarah Teather, today published a Green Paper on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities which proposes a new single assessment process to join up health, social care and education services.

Commenting on the announcement, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee for Education, Young People and Families in the Commons, Dan Rogerson, said:

“Many parents with children who need a little extra help to flourish feel let down by the current system. A maze of assessments and a mountain of paper stand between them and getting their child the support parents feel they need.

“Thanks to Sarah Teather’s hard work and the Department of Health’s invaluable assistance and commitment to the reforms, this Green Paper takes forward the Liberal Democrat determination to put families at the centre of our approach to special educational needs through joining up services and having them work together to achieve the best outcomes.

“By identifying problems early and acting immediately the new approach will allow children to be independent and successful in their chosen futures.”

Commenting further, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Committee for Education, Young People and Families in the Lords, Baroness (Joan) Walmsley, said:

“The reforms proposed are not another top-down imposition of government on families who need support.

“Thanks to the thousands of submission from parents, teachers and young people who have been part of the system, these proposals are based on how people experience the system and on what they told the Government they needed to achieve their goals and ambitions. This will give parents much needed confidence in the system.

“The opportunity for the third sector to get involved will give further confidence in the independence of the assessment process.”

Another week goes by and Ivan Lewis, the Labour MP for Bury South, remains stubbornly silent on the subject of university tuition fees. He raised it with me before Christmas, writing to me and copying in the Bury Times at the height of controversy over the issue, accusing me of betraying young people and, I presume, hoping to convince any young Lib Dem voters to vote for him instead. He has made it very clear that he opposes the government’s decision to increase fees in line with the recommendations of the Browne Review. I also disagree and have made clear my alternative proposal.

Despite asking Ivan many times, and despite posting about the issue regularly on this website I know he reads, he has not yet told me what he’d do to solve the problem. It is symptomatic of Labour’s “oppose everything, propose nothing” approach to politics at the moment which I hope people aren’t falling for.

One Labour figure not silent on the subject is Peter Mandelson. In the foreword to the paperback edition of his book, Lord Mandelson suggests that tuition fees would have gone up to £6,000 if Labour had won the election. Mandelson was, of course, the man who set up the Browne review in November 2009, which reported last year and recommended much of what the government is doing. Lord Mandelson says “I assumed, as the Treasury did, that the outcome [of the Browne review] would have to include a significant increase in tuition fees. I felt that they would certainly have to double in order to offset the deficit-reduction measures that we too would have implemented had we won the election.”

That’s a very interesting admission, not only of the probability that Labour would have had to increase fees dramatically but also of the need to reduce the deficit, which is another thing Ivan Lewis is remarkably reticent about as he criticises government savings.

I really do wonder what Ivan would’ve done about this issue (and all the others, but let’s focus on this one for now) were he in government right now. After all, he is probably the most tribally loyal Labour MP in Westminster. His record of voting against Labour Party proposals is almost non-existent, despite the awfulness of several during the last government (Iraq, ID Cards, abolishing the 10p tax rate etc) and of course he voted for tuition fees to be introduced and then trebled. I wrote yesterday that tribal party loyalty is sometimes the price to pay for a political career, but until Ivan tells us differently we have to assume that he genuinely believes in everything he votes for. So what does he believe about tuition fees? As his constituents, oughtn’t we to know?

I can only assume that were he and Lord Mandelson still running the show, they too would’ve implemented the proposals put forward by the Browne Review, and Ivan would’ve cheerfully voted them through because they had “Labour” stamped on them rather than because they were necessarily a good idea.

In the past I’ve repeated my questions to Ivan about fees – Does he agree with me that the state should pay for university education, or does he continue to believe in tuition fees as he did when he voted to introduce them in 1998 and then treble them some years later? He has never answered that.

Now though we can add another question. Does Ivan agree with Lord Mandelson (his colleague of very many years in government, and still his party colleague) that Labour would have raised tuition fees too? And if so, which way would he have voted?

Let’s see if he carries on hiding.

Rick

Today Exeter University (predictably) became the latest Uni to announce that it would charge the maximum £9,000 fees for tuition. I think the government need to let us know now, clearly, what it is doing to keep its promise that only in exceptional circumstances would universities apply the top rate. We need to know what safeguards are put in place for poorer students at such universities, or else what little faith students have in government will disappear. I look to the Lib Dems in government to make sure that this happens.

The news reminded me though that it’s now 11 weeks since Ivan Lewis MP, the Labour MP for Bury South, publicly criticised the government’s university fees policy, and particularly the Lib Dems for breaking our pledge not to increase fees. He accused us in the Bury Times (and in personal letters to our homes) of betraying the young people of Bury.

I agree that the pledge shouldn’t have been broken. I’d have voted against the proposals for that reason, if given the chance. However, that would’ve been the only reason I’d have voted against them, because I think they’re an improvement for reasons I’ve explained before (type “Richard Baum tuition fees” into Google if you want to read more on that). Young people will end up paying much less every month, and their debt will impact on their lives in now way other than to be a small extra tax from their pay packet each month. I wish I’d have graduated under the future system rather than under the Labour one which I did graduate under.  

Lots of people are angry at the Lib Dems on this issue, including me. But I still think we’re the only party being honest on this. We are still committed to abolishing fees if running the government, but sadly we are one sixth of a coalition.

Labour, for all their criticism, have no alternative, as proven by Ivan Lewis’ 11-week silence on the matter. Remember, Labour introduced tuition fees in the first place, then trebled them despite promising not to. They now oppose the government with no actual policy to offer as an alternative.

I will ask, yet again, for a response from Ivan and Labour to this simple question: Do Labour continue to support tuition fees, as they have done since introducing them, or do they agree with me that tuition fees should be abolished?

Until Labour provide an answer, there really is no reason to vote for them on this issue.

Rick

Another week of silence from Ivan Lewis and Labour on tuition fees. You can read the history of this ongoing debate which Ivan started here. He criticised the government about tuition fees (rightly, in my view) but when I asked him for his and his party’s solution, he had nothing.

9 weeks on, there’s still nothing, despite several letters exchanged between us, and continuing Labour criticism of the government.

If Labour can’t give an alternative on this, what else do they have no alternative on? Are they now the party of “no” rather than a party offering any ideas? Evidence like this suggests so. 

Rick

Week 8 in the ongoing saga of whether Ivan Lewis MP has anything pro-active to say on university funding, and the answer still appears to be “no”.

8 weeks ago he wrote to me criticising the coalition’s view on tuition fees. He wanted to make political capital and get people to vote Labour. I engaged with him and we exchanged some letters in which I made clear my own opposition to the government’s plans, and my own solution. In each of the letters I asked Ivan for his own views. He didn’t give me any.

I told him I’d keep letting people know for as long as his silence continues, so that’s what I’m doing. 8 weeks later, and still nothing from Ivan about how he’d pay for university. This from a man who voted to introduce tuition fees, then to treble them. Like so much from Mr Lewis and his Labour Party, this is another example of an attitude which is wholly critical, and not at all constructive. Labour were in favour of fees when in government, but are now against them when in opposition. They cannot present themselves as a better alternative with an attitude like that.

Perhaps Ivan’s head is buried so far in sand that he can’t hear my questions. So I’ll ask them again: Ivan, what is your solution to the university funding issue? You’ve made clear your opposition to the coalition’s plans, so would you vote for the abolition of tuition fees as I would, or would you continue to vote for their increase as you have done consistently in the past?

I continue to live in hope of a response.

Rick

It’s now six weeks since I asked Bury South Labour MP Ivan Lewis for his proposal to solve the university funding conundrum.

Seven weeks ago he wrote to me and sent a copy of the letter to the Bury Times criticising Lib Dems for breaking their promise not to raise tuition fees. I agree with him that we shouldn’t have broken the promise. I think university in its current should be state funded for undergraduates.

But the tone of Mr Lewis’s letter was very accusatory so I asked him what his (and/or Labour’s) solution was. After all, Mr Lewis voted with Labour to intriduce tuition fees in 1998 and then treble them despite promising not to in 2003. It seemed odd that he was now so virulently anti-fees.

We have exchanged three letters since, and Mr Lewis’s accusations have become ever more angry. He still hasn’t answered the basic question though. I have said I’d keep asking it on this website every week until I get an answer. So I am asking it again:

Ivan Lewis – how do you propose to fund universities?

Rick

A leading member of the Conservative Cabinet running Bury Council tonight admitted to “not knowing much” about a programme of charges set to be introduced at Bury’s Children’s Centres, despite signing off the decision to introduce them.

The admission came at a meeting of the Council’s Internal Scrutiny committee, which exposed some worrying weaknesses in the decision making processes at the Town Hall.

The issue itself is controversial. I can see the arguments on both sides. There is a need for the Council to raise revenues, and this is one way. On the other hand, Children’s Centres are very popular, especially with less well-off children and their families, who may be put off using services or feel stigmatised if charges were to be introduced. It’s a debate I would have enjoyed having.

Sadly we didn’t get that far because the report produced by Cllr Robert Caserta, the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services was woefully poor. It was devoid of statistics or evidence to back up claims made. It was short, lacking in context, and some of the claims made in it were exposed as exaggerations or worse during questioning. My committee was provided with scant information on costings, and then only half an hour before the meeting. In short, it was a disgraceful report.

The Cabinet Member himself admitted to having signed off his decision to impose the charges “whilst not knowing much” about the issue, and also said that despite the decision being signed and dated 30th November, the costs and services to be charged were only finalised yesterday afternoon.

We agreed unanimously to send the report back to its author and for him to suspend his decision to impose charges. We have requested that another, more detailed and considered report, be brought back for discussion at our next meeting in three weeks, at which I hope we can have the debate we need to have.

The facts of tonight are annoying. We wasted our time with an inappropriate report. But the worrying thing is that had this decision not been called in to Scrutiny, the only check on Cabinet member decision making that there is at the Town Hall, this measure would have been introduced on the back of a flimsy report which the Cabinet Member himself admitted was made without his full knowledge.

I wonder what other decisions are being taken by the Council without proper Cabinet Member involvement and oversight? What other duties are Cabinet members not discharging properly? And what other actions are Council officers imposing on Bury whilst Cabinet Members stand idly by? If Cllr Caserta’s actions typify the Conservative Cabinet in Bury, then the Conservatives running the Council are letting people down.

Rick

It’s now been 4 weeks since Ivan Lewis wrote to all the Lib Dem councillors in Bury (copying the letter to the Bury Times) criticising the government’s plans to increase university tuition fees.

I oppose the government, even though my own party is part of it, so I told him that, and that I favoured government funding instead.

I asked him what his favoured position was, since the Labour party doesn’t have one.

I did receive a reply (which you can read here) but it didn’t answer the question of what Ivan Lewis thinks or wants as a solution to this problem.

It’s now been a month, and I still don’t have an answer. We all know what Mr Lewis thinks about the government’s plans for university funding, but what does he think should be done? Whatever he thinks, he’s not telling us.

Rick