Lammy votes to plunge students into massive debt

On Monday night, Conservatives MPs attempted to overturn the Labour Government's plans for student top-up fees which, say Tories, will plunge many students into debt or face their parents with stumping up £9,000 in fees on their behalf.

The Conservative motion was defeated, with 4 out of 5 local MPs: Ryan, Love, Twigg and Lammy voting to impose top-up fees (Roche did not vote). Local Conservatives say that local MPs are slavishly following Party instructions rather than local residents' interests or even their own consciences (Enfield North's Joan Ryan is an ex-teacher and Enfield Southgate's Steven Twigg is currently an Education Minister...and both should know better).

Conservatives have announced plans for wide-ranging reform of higher education that will give a fair deal for students and universities. Conservatives will:

- Scrap all tuition fees

- Axe Labour's plans for top-up fees, which would mean a total bill of £9,000 for students

- Scrap Labour's arbitrary university admissions target

- Axe the proposed Access Regulator for universities

- Improve vocational and technical education

As Peter Forrest, Conservative GLA Candidate for Enfield-Haringey, explains:

"Labour has twice broken its promises on fees and let students down badly. Conservatives will scrap all fees and give a fair deal for students. Enfield-Haringey's Labour MPs are a disgrace and are voting for damaging educational reform despite their own experience in education".

ENDS.

Notes to Editors:

Labour's broken promises

Tuition fees - Labour's first broken promise

During the 1997 general election Tony Blair promised, "Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education" (Evening Standard, 14 April 1997). Yet within a year, the Labour Government had brought in tuition fees.

Top-up fees - Labour's second broken promise

In the 2001 Labour manifesto, they pledged, "We will not introduce top-up fees". But less than two years later, the Labour Government has announced that it would allow universities to charge fees of up to £3,000 a year.

Liberal Democrats make students pay

Liberal Democrats say that they would scrap tuition fees, but we only have to look at their record in Scotland. Tuition fees have not been abolished in Scotland  as fees still have to be repaid after graduation (the so-called graduate endowment liability). Far from abolishing tuition fees, graduates just pay later and some pay more. As Labours David Blunkett has remarked, it is difficult to see how anyone in Scotland has gained, with 40 per cent of students not paying fees in the first place and now having the non-fee deferred so that they have to pay after they have left university.

Indeed, advertising watchdogs have investigated the Labour-Liberal Democrat Executive in Scotland over a complaint it has made misleading claims about "abolishing" tuition fees. The ASA carried out a simultaneous investigation into similar claims made by the Scottish Liberal Democrats in leaflets circulated to households in Edinburgh.