An open letter to Paul Boateng MP urging him to vote against Top-up fees
January 19, 2004 12:00 PM
By Sarah Teather MP
By Sarah Teather MP
Paul Boateng MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
18 January 2004
Dear Paul
I am writing to you as a fellow Brent colleague to urge you to join with Labour backbenchers in opposing the Government proposals to introduce top-up fees next week in the House of Commons. I would not normally consider writing to you personally on an issue which I know would bring you into conflict with the Labour Government and possibly embarrass you as a Government Minister. However, I felt that I must write to you on this occasion as I feel passionately that the proposals are both unjust and unhelpful, and because so many of your Labour colleagues are publicly opposing the Government on this issue. I have also written personally to Barry about this matter.
Many local people will remember that you stood in 2001 on a Labour manifesto which promised that a Labour Government would not introduce top-up fees. Now Tony Blair is preparing to break that promise to the British people, justifying it by a slight of hand on when the proposals would be introduced. I have spoken to many Brent residents who are angry with the Government for going back on their word, and have received many more letters from students and young people anxious about how the changes will affect them.
Debt is already a huge problem for today's students - it is a problem which limits their choices of where to study and leaves many spending more time working to earn money to eat and pay rent than studying to pass their degree. The introduction of top-up fees will further increase the massive burden of debt placed on students. A Barclays Bank survey predicts that by the end of this decade, students will face debts of up to £33,000. The prospect of graduating with such a burden of debt and then trying to raise a family or obtain a mortgage is difficult to imagine. Certainly it is impossible to argue that such a burden of debt would not affect a choice of career, with the likely impact on lower paid vocations in public service.
However, fear of debt for many students is just as real as real debt. I am concerned that the young people who are most likely to be deterred from taking up a place at university are those from families with low or moderate incomes, and those from ethnic minorities - as found by the recent Universities UK funded research. Muslim students in particular are highly debt averse, and I have found a high level of anxiety when discussing the proposals with young Muslims in Brent East. As MPs representing one of the most ethnically diverse Boroughs in the country and an area with a wide social and economic mix, this research must be a cause of grave concern for both of us.
As a party, the Liberal Democrats have supported the Government's calls to widen participation and access to higher education. We also support the proposals to abolish up-front tuition fees. However, I feel immense frustration at the unwillingness to find other ways of funding these proposals. Higher Education is in desperate need of urgent extra funding following years of cuts, principally by the Tories. However, there are more imaginative and fairer ways of finding this extra money - ways which will not directly conflict with the Government's laudable attempts to widen participation.
The proposals on the table would mean that a graduate earning less than £35,000 would pay a marginal rate of 42% of their income in tax in order to pay off their debt - this is more than we charge even the highest earners. I believe that a fairer tax would shift the burden from students starting out in life to those on high incomes. A new 50p rate of tax on those earning more than £100,000 a year would raise £4.5bn and enable the Government to invest £2bn into higher education, thus abolishing upfront fees, top-up fees and introducing a maintenance grant for students from lower incomes.
You and I, Paul, have benefited from a good university education. I suspect that we both also benefited from a maintenance grant and we have gone on to earn a good wage and obtain a high profile job as a result. Perhaps I feel this most keenly as the youngest MP in the Commons, but I am ashamed to think that we who have been so privileged could watch as those opportunities are taken away from young people who follow after us.
I strongly urge you to listen to concerns of families and young people in Brent and honour your manifesto pledge on this matter. Please oppose the Government's plans on higher education in the vote next week.
Kind regards,
Sarah Teather
Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East
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