Labour's MASSIVE hike in Student Tuition Fees Sparks Outrage

Right, so having targeted pensioners with cuts to the winter fuel allowance, ignoring the will of Labour Conference who demanded that such cuts be abandoned, because Conference means nothing anymore, having targeted the old, Starmer now turns his focus to the young. His approval ratings are now the lowest they have ever been, but they aren’t low enough for him. Having abandoned his pledge to young people to axe tuition fees as part of his social justice pledge, used to con his way into the Labour leadership position as that and 9 other pledges were, he’s now set to increase tuition fees massively, because just like the old, the young must pay so the rich and the donors don’t have to.
Right, so it was just a year ago, last September, that Keir Starmer formally binned one of the few pledges that were seemingly still standing of his original 10 leadership promises to Labour members and told a group of students in Liverpool when asked about cutting interest rates on student loans or abolishing tuition fees that due to the state of the public finances, that was impossible. Amazing how he knew about the state of the public finances back in September of last year, yet somehow they missed it when the OBR and the IFS pointed out the shortfall in government funding during the election campaign, so that their £22bn financial black hole, that they can’t shut up about now, came as something of a surprise isn’t it?
By May of this year Starmer was claiming that tuition fees couldn’t be axed because he needed that money to fund the NHS, despite that supposedly being the point of National Insurance of course. Listening to Wes Streeting in the last few days however, getting waiting lists down doesn’t appear to be as a result of extra funding he’s won from those tuition fee cuts, because at Labour Conference he compared his vision for operating theatres to a Formula One Pit Stop. He thinks he can get four times as many operations done than is normal. That’s not investment, that’s whip cracking and Streeting is clearly insane if this is how he thinks he can get hospitals to function and do so safely and securely, with patients being prioritised. A cynic might think that was a recipe for failure to promote more privatisation.
Well now it isn’t just a case of Starmer not being able to axe tuition fees allegedly on the basis of the national finances, or money needed for Streeting’s wild-eyed imaginings for our health service but now tuition fees are actually going to get hiked instead, a massive 13.5% rise in tuition fees over the next 5 years.
It was only back in July that our Education Secretary and recipient of Lord Alli funded birthday parties Bridget Phillipson promised that tuition fees were not going to rise and now, they are going to go through the roof, rising from £9,250 a year, where they have been since 2017, to £10,500 by 2029.
Why is this being done? Inflation apparently. Having been kept at the level they are at now since 2017, apparently the pressures have grown so severe on Universities, that the hikes are now necessary, but of course hiking tuition fees to fund that is a choice. It was a choice to impose tuition fees as Blair introduced. It was a choice to treble them as David Cameron did with the support of the Liberal Democrats in 2010, it is a choice for Starmer and Reeves – who it has to be said, is apparently yet to sign off on this, but do you honestly believe she won’t? To increase these fees again?
Here’s an excerpt from LBC on the story, which nails the main points and leads me into my next segue:
‘Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said the current £9,250-a-year tuition fees have been “eroded”, with their value no longer reflecting what they once did.
She has said the current system is the “worst of all worlds”, hinting reform could well be on the horizon.
A Government source has told LBC a rise in tuition fees is one of "several options being considered" by the Department of Education.
Fees could rise by up to 13.5 per cent over the next five years to £10,500, according to reports.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government would prevent this from impacting the poorest children through the reintroduction of maintenance grants, which were worth up to £3,500 before being abolished by the Conservatives in 2016.’
Damo you deceptive devil you, you might be thinking after that. Starmer is raising tuition fees, but he’s bringing back the maintenance grant, that’s great news isn’t it? To which I’ll say yes it is. With two kids at University myself, this is brilliant news on the face of it, but this is Starmer and Reeves, so forgive me if I haven’t gone looking for the catch, because surely there has to be one?
On one hand, the first kneejerk reaction I have to that is how are they funding the return of the maintenance grant for the poorest households, so the increase in tuition fees doesn’t impact them as much?
Reeves is all about cuts, how much would this grant restoration cost? How many households will this affect? Is there a cap on how many households can apply for this pot of funding? Do we actually believe Starmer would actually deliver on this, just because it’s being floated now? He went from abolishing tuition fees in 2020, to increasing them in line with inflation now. Why should we believe him on any of this? It’s just as likely to be a meaningless lie to take the heat off him for hiking tuition fees to begin with than anything he might actually end up delivering on.
But let’s set cynicism aside, none of us are crystal ball gazers, we can’t be sure Starmer will abandon this down the road when advantageous. Let’s assume Starmer does go ahead and restore these maintenance grants.
The claim is that these will be for the poorest households, so as not to disadvantage kids going to Uni from lower income households. This therefore requires means testing. So what are the conditions of that going to be? Parents out of work? Seems likely. Parents in receipt of benefits whether in work or outside of it, because many people in receipt of social security are in work, many receive Universal Credit, something else incidentally, that Starmer promised to abolish as part of that same social justice pledge he made when running to be Labour leader that he also broke his word on. Where’s the cut off? There obviously will be one, and that means there will have to means testing. Means testing requires administration, administration results in significant costs, how are they being covered? Would it actually work out cheaper to just restore universal maintenance grants in which case? An argument to be made I’m sure, once any details of the sort of income levels we’re talking about in order to ascertain eligibility for said grants.
That is something else that will also need to be determined. Will there be a taper to that for parents of varying income, or will it be a sharp cut off, leaving their children potentially falling through the gap as to whether they get their grant or not, one term to the next because mum and dad earned £1 too much?
But then there is the thing that sprung to my mind first and foremost when I was reading up on this tuition fee story and the bit about the maintenance grant returning and that is that alongside this tuition fee hike and the possible reintroduction of the maintenance grant, plus the consideration that needs to be paid as far as eligibility for that goes, which presumably - we’ll make the assumption on this anyway, I think it’s a fair one - that any family in receipt of benefits would be eligible, is the changes to social security being made by Labour at the moment too and whether that could be used as a pretext to strip the maintenance grant away from families, because I can completely see that as a consideration being factored in by people as deeply unpleasant as those running the country. If these are the sort of people who are prepared to leave kids in poverty or freeze the elderly, what do they care if students have their studies interrupted by their funding all of a sudden disappearing on them and of course it would disproportionately target poorest families if this works out this way?
Already we’ve had recent news of Labour plans to spy on the bank accounts of those in receipt of social security. They feel the negligible amount of benefit fraud, which right wing hate rags cannot stop amplifying and exaggerating means this is a necessary additional waste of public money in their view, God forbid someone get paid £50 quid too much and the government doesn’t come down on that, but hey, who cares if the party in power takes £4m from a tax haven based hedge fund eh? In my opinion any attack on the poorest in society should be a red flag for corruption, because it’s a choice again, to hit those with the least and spare those with the most, who might be donors, who might be buying influence. Count the freebies, count this massive and underreported hedge fund donation and Labour under Starmer is possibly the most corrupt government we’ve ever seen, so them targeting poorer families and quibbling over their social security would be par for the course for such corruption and given this is a revival of Tory policy, Tory plans to spy on bank accounts, well it’s hardly Starmer’s promised change is it?
But if bank accounts are going to be scrutinised constantly and it’ll be the same bank accounts of the families of those in receipt in all likelihood of these maintenance grants, are students going to end up living in fear of their incomes being slashed if mum and dad, who might have a, irregular income, fall foul of any cut off points, or find themselves punished for earning a bit much here even if they didn’t earn nearly so much the month before? A work bonus for instance? Labour’s Fraud, Error and Debt Bill could end up having a knock on effect to maintenance grants if care isn’t taken and the Big Issue have nailed this point in an excerpt from one of their latest articles on this issue:
‘There are fears that the Labour government is echoing similar pledges made by the Conservative government to heighten the “surveillance” of benefits claimants.
Campaigners warn it risks “criminalising” innocent benefit claimants in a bid to save the government money and comes as another blow to vulnerable people amid controversy over the winter fuel payments.
Mikey Erhardt, a campaigner at Disability Rights UK, said: “The government’s latest plans are essentially a digital sledgehammer to crack the tiniest nut.
“These new powers could see millions deprived of the presumption of innocence, adding to the criminalisation we already face in a punitive welfare system that often seeks to sanction people into work, whether we are able to or not.”’
A sledgehammer to crack the tiniest nut is a fitting analogy, but the knock effect that could be felt disproportionately by poorer students for daring to claim the maintenance grant, well it could put families off entirely, not just for claiming the grant, but again going to Uni, making it more the preserve of the wealthier at the expense of the poor.
It's just the next move in Starmer & Reeves Toryesque war on the poor to my mind.
Meanwhile if we cast our mind back to that £4m donation from the tax haven hedge fund Quadrature Capital, as much as I’ve identified a potential link between social security reform and the return of the maintenance grant here, I’ve spotted at least 3 policy areas that may appear to be directly influenced by that donation. See what you think. Check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch and see if you think Starmer & Co essentially have policy for sale and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.