Bribes and transactionalism

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Those clever Tories have noticed that they didn’t do very well at attracting the votes of young people in the election, so they’ve decided to do something about it.  In this case, ‘doing something’ means offering changes on issues such as tuition fees and housing.  And they’re being utterly shameless about it; they’re not even attempting to say that there’s anything wrong with the way things are at present – indeed, they give every indication of believing that current policies are the right ones.  They are making no attempt to explain why the changes they propose will be better for the country as a whole, or how they fit with their other objectives – I suspect that they are not really convinced themselves.

No, this is all about targeting a specific section of the electorate (not even all young people in fact) and offering direct bribes to persuade them to change their voting patterns.  Will it work?  I really don’t know, but I suspect that it’s just too obvious and blatant to have quite the effect that they want.  Confirmation bias is as likely to make people believe that they could have done these things all along if they’d really wanted to, so that all that guff about austerity was the lie that many knew it to be all along.

But I shouldn’t really be that surprised at the nature of the pitch they are making.  It is, after all, axiomatic to them that individuals will always act in their own best financial interests rather than thinking about any wider issues.  From that perspective, all they need to do is to explain to the target audience why voting Tory will make them as individuals better off, and turn it into a simple monetary transaction.  They’ve become so blinded by that belief that they really can’t see anything wrong with that approach.  Perhaps it’s another form of what someone said about the existing order containing the seeds of its own destruction.  Self-destruction certainly seems to be working its way up the Tory agenda these days.

Money, students and manifestos

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It’s only a few weeks since the UK General Election and already Labour seem to be rowing back on their promise to write off student debt, with claims in the last few days that it was more of an 'ambition' than a firm policy, even if it didn’t exactly sound that way during the election campaign. 

Here in Wales, Plaid Cymru, the party which helped Labour introduce tuition fees in the first place during the One Wales period, is now criticising Labour for increasing fees to match the latest change in England, claiming that the proposal goes against the Labour Party’s manifesto.  They presumably assume that we’ve all forgotten that when most of the Plaid AMs voted to introduce fees in the first place they were also going against their own manifesto commitment.  (And it’s worth noting that the politician taking the decision to increase fees is actually a member of the Lib Dems, another party with a somewhat, shall we say ‘chequered’, history on the question of fees.)  The whole issue of student fees seems to be one which unites governing parties in supporting them whilst opposition parties unite in opposing them, and that’s true whichever party forms either the government or the opposition.

The underlying question has two strong ideological elements to it.  The first is whether services supplied by the government should be collectively funded or paid for by those who actually use them, and the second is to do with the question of the availability of money for the government to pay for things.

Regular readers will know that I’m a committed supporter of the idea that services should be funded collectively rather than paid for individually, and I entirely accept that that is a position which flows from my own ideological standpoint.  In the case of university education, I accept that those benefitting from it often end up better off financially than those who don’t, but a properly progressive taxation system would ensure that those with the highest earnings also make the highest contributions to paying for services.  (And, as an aside, people who end their education at ‘A’ level tend to do better financially than those with GCSEs, and those with GCSEs do better than those without.  Why single out one particular type of education for payment at point of use?)

But let’s turn to the second ideological factor – the availability or otherwise of money.  Governments, of whatever colour, tell us that ‘we can’t afford’ to provide university education without charging for it.  But like all the other things that they tell us we can’t afford, it comes down to policy choices.  How much the government raises in taxes, how much it borrows, and how much it spends are all political choices.  When the government needs a few billions for some project or other – such as buying the support of the DUP or starting another war somewhere – it can always find it, because the UK Government controls the money supply.

However, the Welsh Government does not control its money supply.  It has long been a theme of this blog that governments are not like households, and they really don’t have to balance their budgets in the same way, but more accurately, that is only true for governments which can control the supply of money – like the UK Government.  The Welsh Government’s budget, on the other hand, really is more like that of a household, and a household whose purse strings are controlled elsewhere and which can be arbitrarily loosened or tightened.  Whilst I might have had more sympathy for Labour’s response if they had been more honest and spelled out more clearly that any promise relating to fees in Wales was wholly dependent on the election of a Labour Government for the UK as a whole (and therefore on voters in England), their basic point that they can only find the money to do something different in Wales if London gives it to them or they cut elsewhere is a valid excuse in itself.

The backtracking by UK Labour is a far more serious issue.  The interesting point is that in his interview McDonnell actually acknowledged that half the nominal amount of student debt will never be paid back in any event.  And figures elsewhere suggest that 70% of students will never repay the whole of their debt.  In essence, the whole edifice of student loans and debts is based on little more than an accounting sleight of hand. 

The UK Government pretends that it is not paying student fees because the students are paying them.  But the students do so by borrowing the money from the Student Loans Company which is wholly owned by the UK Government.  And where does their money come from?  From the Government, of course.  So, instead of using borrowing, taxation or the magic money tree to pay fees, the government raises the same money from the same sources to fund loans through the SLC, and for accounting purposes assumes that it’s going to get around half of it back over a lengthy period.  The other half – the bit that will never be repaid – will, in effect, have already been paid by the government – exactly what the government says it ‘can’t afford’ to do as a reason for introducing tuition fees in the first place.

Before the election, it appeared that Labour were offering hope to young people that they could enjoy a university education in exchange for paying a fair share of tax if they earned more when they took up employment.  It even looked as though they understood that governments are not like households.  After the election, it appears that they’re reverting to type and falling in with the Tories’ attitude towards finances after all.

Political sincerity

Tweet Nick Clegg’s response to the decision of his pary’s membership to contuinue to oppose airport expansion was certainly forthright.  Ultimately, it boils down to saying that because he didn’t get the answer he wanted, his party will have to continue discussing it until he does.  I’m not sure that he’d apply the same rule in other circumstances, such as a certain recent referendum.  In that case, I rather suspect that he’d argue that the decision, once taken, is final; but then poltiicians tend to like rules that only apply when they want them to.

I was particularly interested in the way he drew parallels with other party decisions, such as that on tuition fees.  This passage in particular made me wonder: “…how can I put it – I’ve seen the perils of the past of putting something which you know in your heart of hearts is not necessarily deliverable”. Is he, in effect, telling us that he knew the pledge was undeliverable when he made it? 

He solemnly signed that enormous card, and looked directly into camera and told us all that a vote for the Lib Dems was a vote against tuition fees, but he’s now telling us that he knew all along in his ‘heart of hearts’ that he could not and would not deliver it.  That comes as a bit of a shock even to an old cynic like me.  And given that he’s already telling us that he can’t and won’t deliver the Lib Dem pledge on airport expansion if he gets into government again, how can anyone believe anything that they put in their manifesto?

Conceding ground

Tweet It was always going to be simply a matter of time before someone would put their head above the parapet and advocate charging fees for attending state schools.  This week, the headmaster of Wellington College has duly obliged.

Politicians have pooh-poohed the idea at this stage – but I seem to remember that all parties opposed tuition fees for university students at some stage or another, and now all of them support such fees.  It might just be a matter of time until this latest proposal becomes accepted policy as well.

The only thing I found surprising in the proposal is that it is more general in its scope than I expected.  I had thought that the first suggestion along these lines would be for 16 to 18 education, not for the whole of secondary education.  Insofar as there is a logical point at which to draw a line between “free” and “chargeable” education, it is surely the point at which education ceases to be compulsory.

Those who have supported the introduction of tuition fees – and that’s elected politicians from all four parties in Wales – will, on any logical basis, struggle to justify why one form of post-16 education should be treated differently (i.e. charged for) from any other.

Some of the other comments reported I found particularly depressing.

Doctor Seldon said that state schooling was "the last great bastion holding out against the principle of payment".  Sadly he’s right, of course.  Conventional politicians have conceded the principle of charging in so many different areas that it becomes hard for those caught in that mind-set to justify continued ‘exceptions’.  Indeed, the very idea that schools are an ‘exception’ underlines the mind-set.

The concept that services should be paid for by those who use them – even if on a means tested basis – has been allowed to gain the upper hand by politicians who are too timid to argue otherwise for fear of losing the centre ground.  But what they seem not to realise is that their timidity is helping to shift the centre ground.  There are few left who are even prepared to suggest that those who “cannot afford” to pay for services should simply pay more taxes.  But why not?

What's the aim?

Tweet According to the treasurers of our universities, Welsh Government policy on student fees is diverting “their” money to English universities.  They don’t quite say it, but the implication is that it would be “better” (for them at least) if students were charged full fees rather than having their fees paid wherever they choose to study.

The opposition parties were quick to jump on the bandwagon.  Any stick with which to beat the government will apparently do.  They were more than a little short on positive alternatives though.

The question that struck me was about what we are trying to achieve with the money we spend on higher education.  There are at least two - very different - choices:

• providing the very best higher education for our young people.  If that is our aim then paying their fees wherever they study – which is effectively current Welsh government policy – is probably the best way of doing it; or
• making our universities as good as we can – in which case, funding the universities directly and keeping all the higher education spend in Wales would be the better approach.

In an ideal world, the two might, in effect, look very similar.  If our institutions were the very best – and they are certainly striving to be that – then the best education for young people would be that provided by our own universities.  There are some complications though:

• Universities in Wales have expanded way beyond what is necessary to meet the “home” demand.  Even if we assume that there will be some transfers in and some transfers out, the imbalance between those transfers means that to sustain their current size – let alone support ambitious expansion plans – our universities need to attract a significant net inflow of students to Wales.  To what extent do we want to use our higher education spending to fund the education of “foreign” students?
• Wales is a small country, and it is unlikely that our universities will ever be able to even provide for every possible academic discipline, let alone be the best in all of those.  Do we want to limit the choices of young people to what is available in Wales, or do we want to facilitate learning wherever they go?
• Many of those who go elsewhere to study choose never to return (although by the same token, many of those to come to Wales to study choose to settle and stay here).  Leaving aside any considerations about the desirability or otherwise of the population exchanges involved here, to what extent do we wish to pay for the education of our young people, even if “we” don’t see the return on that investment?

None of these are easy questions, and politicians reducing them to simplistic sloganeering aren’t really shedding a lot of light, nor do they seem to be offering much clarity of direction.

I find myself torn – I want us to invest in the best education we can for our young people; I want them to stay in (or return to) Wales and help us build the nation we can become.  And I want a world where people are free to go where they wish to follow their dreams and aspirations.  My problem is that I’m not sure we can do all of those things at the same time.

And my problem with the political reactions highlighted in the BBC report is that it left me unclear as to which – if any – of those objectives either the government or the opposition is actually trying to achieve.

Dangerous precedents

Tweet According to his Wikipedia entry, Lord Bichard spent most of his working life in the public sector.  During that time, he no doubt contributed to various public sector pension schemes, and now enjoys the benefits of those schemes.  I wonder how he’d feel if the managers of those schemes suggested that he should lose part of his pension if he refused to volunteer for unpaid work?

That doesn’t seem to me to be very different from what he has suggested should happen to state pensioners.  It might be argued that the state pension scheme has never been actuarially sound, and that the contributions made have never been enough to support the level of benefits promised to pensioners.  That would be true; but those in receipt of, or expecting to receive, state pensions are hardly to blame for the fact that those managing their pensions promised them certain benefits and never took enough money from either the employees or the employers to pay for them.

From the pensioners’ point of view, the two situations are very similar – they paid in what they were told to pay in, and were promised certain benefits in return.  What his lordship seems to be proposing in the case of the state pension is to breach the contract to which those paying their NI contributions over 40-50 years thought they had agreed.

His choice of words is interesting as well.  He refers to being able to “use incentives to encourage older people, if not to be in full time work, to be making a contribution”; but his proposal to reduce the level of pension paid for those who don't sounds a lot more like a penalty for not ‘volunteering’ than an incentive to do so.  The carrot looks more like a stick to me.

His comparison with the question of student fees is another notable aspect.  As the BBC put it: ‘He acknowledged it would be difficult for politicians to sell to the public, but added: "So was tuition fees."’  It seemed a fair point to me – and a lesson which we should learn.

No matter how unacceptable many of may feel his latest proposal to be, the parallel with tuition fees is instructive.  All four parties in Wales opposed tuition fees at some point or another – but eventually, the majority of elected members in all four were persuaded or cajoled into voting for that which they had previously opposed.  To an extent at least, this was as a result of civil servants (such as Lord Bichard?) telling them that they had no alternative.  But by caving in so easily, they have moved the political centre of gravity to the right, and created a climate where people like Bichard can use their U-turn on one 'difficult' issue as a precedent for further movement in the same direction.

Those who said one thing in opposition and did the opposite in government have a lot to answer for.

At it again

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The Tories were at it again this week, criticising the Welsh Government’s arithmetic over tuition fees.  Whilst the figures have not worked out in line with the assumptions made, it simply doesn’t follow that the government was wrong to make the assumptions that it did.

Given that the situation regarding student fees was an entirely new one – as a result of the huge hike in fees imposed by the Tories and Liberal Democrats in England – no one knew for certain what the effect would be on total student numbers, let alone on cross-border transfers.  So the government had no choice – whatever policy it adopted – but to make some “guesstimates”; and they set those at what they thought was the right level based on such knowledge as was available.

If the Tories have some basis for claiming that the estimates could have been closer to the eventual actuals, let’s hear it.  To date, I see nothing from them on that.  And if they have no basis for making such a claim, then criticising the Welsh government for the gap between their best estimates and the actuals is just hot air and headline seeking.

Whilst they seem happy to do that, and to criticise the Welsh Government’s fees policy ad nauseam, they never seem to say much about their own preferred alternative, which is to hike fees for Welsh students to match those in England.  I wonder why?

Muddled thinking

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There are signs of some muddled thinking in this report today.  The report notes that the number of English students applying to study in Wales has dropped, and the usual suspects proceed to provide the customary quotes.

The Conservatives' Education spokesperson wins the prize for squeezing the most clichéd phrases (and the most hyphenated ones too) into the shortest space (‘headline-grabbing’, ‘wafer-thin’, ‘half-baked’ and ‘wake-up call’, all crammed into two sentences).  Stripped of rhetoric however, her point seems to be that the policy is wrong because it’s going to cost more than planned.

In fairness to the Government, they have admitted previously that the costings for the policy were based on estimates.  Indeed, they had to be estimates.  No-one could have known in advance what the level of applications was going to be; apart from any other factor, this was the first year with the new higher fees level – no-one really knew what the effect of that would be on applications.

We shouldn’t castigate governments for proceeding on the basis of estimates rather than hard figures, which seems to be part of the Tories’ pitch.  All governments do it; very little would happen if they did not.  If the estimate could and should have been closer to the out-turn, then there is a potential criticism of incompetence, which is rather a different matter.  But from my reading of the figures, it seems to me that the government took a reasonable and reasoned view in arriving at its numbers.

The question is what happens next.  The Tories’ position seems to be that the policy should be abandoned because it costs more than planned.  That sounds rather like a way of trying to sink it on practical grounds rather than arguing with the principle, which is what they really dislike but are afraid to say.

Clearly, it will be challenging for the government to find what looks like significant extra funding for the policy, but having taken the bold decision to go down this route, it would be an enormous shame if they decided to change tack at this stage, quite apart from the impact on the financial planning of students. 

One thing which does deserve more attention, though, is the comparison between Wales and Scotland when it comes to the numbers of students choosing to stay here to study.  There are many factors involved in this, but the difference is nevertheless stark. 

One of the advantages of the previous policy, before it was abandoned by the One Wales Government, was that there were signs of an increase in the number of ‘stay-in-Wales’ students.  Encouraging that trend wouldn’t solve the financial problems, but it would help to direct the expenditure into Welsh universities.  There’s scope for some tweaking of policy, but it doesn’t need to be abandoned.

Graduate premiums

Tweet This report from an investment advice company makes for interesting reading.  It’s long been claimed that possession of a university degree leads to a boost in lifetime earnings, but the level at which this report sets that boost is much higher than previous estimates.  Government ministers have talked in the past about the premium being around £100,000, but this report suggests that it’s at six times that level – a cool £600,000.

Now, assuming that the recipients of this extra salary manage to avoid higher rate tax throughout their working lives, and that the whole amount is therefore ‘only’ to be taxed at the UK basic tax rate of 20%, that means that the average graduate will pay £120,000 more in income tax over his working life than the average non-graduate.

One of the main arguments for tuition fees is precisely that graduates earn more and should contribute more as a result; but these figures show the extent to which they already do that through the tax system.  Those of us who’ve argued that from the outset will feel vindicated by such a finding; why charge them an extra £27,000 on top of the extra £120,000 they’re already paying?

There’s a sting in the report as well though, because the figures I’ve used so far are based on averages over a working life.  The report also says that, unless a graduate starts his or her working life on a salary of at least £50,000 (and the average first year graduate salary is a mere £19,653 by way of comparison), then the terms of the student loans are such that the graduate is unlikely to earn enough to pay off the loan and added interest, and the government will end up writing off the greater part of the debt.

So, after saddling graduates with debts for the first 30 years of their working life, the government will end up writing off somewhere “between £30,649 and £64,935 for every full-time university student who graduates in 2015”.  That’s more than the three year cost of fees at £27,000, because of the interest added.  Far from transferring the cost of Higher Education from the state to the individuals, the Government will, to a significant extent, merely have deferred the expenditure for 30 years.

This isn’t so much reducing the deficit as putting part of the debt off balance sheet; hiding it away as an unstated liability for the future.  It may not be on the same scale, but it’s not too far removed from some of the accounting practices which Greece used to hide the true extent of its deficit.

I’ve never been convinced that the policy made sense educationally, or that it was fair; and I’ve also been concerned that it would deter bright students from less privileged backgrounds from studying.  If the figures in this report are anywhere near accurate, it suggests that the policy doesn’t even stack up in economic terms either.

Drains and brains

Tweet I found last Thursday's headline story in the Western Mail, about the “brain drain” from Wales both confused and confusing.  The academic report to which it refers was a complex one highlighting a number of different factors, not all of them necessarily bad, and it seemed to me that the Western Mail was having some difficulty in distilling that complex report down to a simple headline story.  I thought the report deserved a more analytical and in depth approach to coverage than the newspaper gave it.

The one common thread seemed to be that "something must be done", although what that "something" is was pretty vague and undefined - largely, one suspects, because there was no clear agreement on what the problem really is; only on the symptoms.

I thought the approach in Dylan Jones Evans's blog was more incisive, highlighting as it did one of the key issues which the Mail seemed to have completely missed, namely that where people choose to study is a key determinant of where they go on to live and work after graduation.  Dylan goes on to highlight the Welsh government's tuition fee policy as a key factor in that decision.  I was with him on the first part but thought that he was stretching the point a bit on the second.

The tuition fees policy pursued by the One Wales government between 2007 and 2000 was much more focused on encouraging students to stay in Wales to study, and there was, as Adam Price forcefully pointed out at the time, some indication that it was having precisely that effect.  Sadly, the then Labour-Plaid government scrapped the policy on grounds of affordability, only to replace it with what looks like a much more expensive policy a year later, after the change in government in London finally allowed Labour in Wales to disagree with the policy of the UK government.

There are a number of issues which drive Welsh students to study in England rather than in Wales, but they go well beyond the tuition fees policy.  Students take into account their perceptions about comparative "quality" (although whether those perceptions are justified is another matter entirely) of universities in Wales and England.  There are also questions about the range of subjects available – the sheer number of universities in England compared with Wales makes it all but inevitable that there will be a greater range of subjects available.

There was an assumption underlying the way that the story was presented that it is inherently a “good" thing that Welsh domiciled students stay in, or return to, Wales after graduation.  That's certainly a point with which I would agree; as a nationalist I want to see a Wales where young people wish and are able to live and work and enjoy rewarding and fulfilling careers in their chosen fields.

(In pure economic terms, however, it isn't as simple as that.  If Welsh students studying and then living elsewhere are replaced by English students studying and living here, the economic effect of the so-called brain drain is far from clear-cut.)

That in turn raises the perennial question of what higher education is for.  Is it to provide the right number of graduates in the right disciplines to meet the current and future economic needs of Wales?  Such an approach undervalues the idea of more abstract learning having an intrinsic value in its own right, but it did seem implicit in some of the comments being made.  Concentrating simply on meeting the economic needs of Wales is surely an inadequate mission for our universities.

One other point struck me as being relevant, and it’s to do with the “internal” brain drain. 

Concentrating merely on net loss from Wales to England ignores the significant net movements happening regionally within Wales.  Areas such as Dyfed and Gwynedd lose a high proportion of their most well-educated young people to Cardiff and the south-east every year.  A concentration merely on the net movements between England and Wales completely loses sight of this fact.

Far from being the dry and irrelevant issue as which some want to paint it, I see greater autonomy for Wales and greater devolution within Wales as being key issues in developing a more balanced and dispersed economy internally.  Re-localisation is what will provide opportunities to young people to live and work in their own communities.  It doesn't guarantee of course that they take them, but giving them the choice would be a good start.

All about perspective

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Today’s education section in the Western Mail contains a lengthy report of an interview with the Tories’ Shadow Education Minister.  It covers a host of education issues – including the matter of tuition fees.

On that particular subject, there was one sentence in particular which struck me as especially revealing – and indeed, it was one of the quotes which the Mail itself chose to headline in the little box at the bottom of the page.

Ms Burns said, “I don’t believe in this current climate we can have a universal benefit like this”.

That goes right to the heart of the difference in perspective which clouds any debate on the issue,  It is clear that, from a Conservative viewpoint, payment of higher education fees is a ‘universal benefit’, something which puts it in the same class as the state pension.  For me, it is an investment in the future of both our young people and our nation.  There’s an enormous gulf between those two perspectives.

But it goes further than that.  It is entirely legitimate to ask at which age paying from education starts to become a ‘benefit’ rather than an investment.  Does such an attitude only apply to higher education?  I can see no logical basis for distinguishing between higher education and further education – or even between higher education and sixth form education.  Indeed, the growth of ‘dual-sector’ institutions means that all three types of education post statutory school leaving age will be delivered by the same institutions.

Perhaps it goes even further than that.  Perhaps deep down at least some Conservatives see all education as a ‘benefit’; part of the benefits system.  In that context, tuition fees are just the thin end of a very large wedge.

I pick on the Tories here, because the statement came from them.  But the underlying attitude – seeing the payment of tuition fees as an unaffordable ‘universal benefit’ permeates all four parties to a greater or lesser degree.  Even some of those arguing for free tuition “when we can afford it” are effectively accepting the basic premise.

There is a real ideological difference here, and that point is not made often enough or strongly enough.  Education is not part of the benefits system and should never be seen as such.  There are two very different world views here, but for too long, politics has glossed over that fact.  Glossing over it is allowing one of those world views to win.

Who are these people?

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There was a story about a month ago claiming that there was a possible loophole in the Welsh Government’s policy on paying tuition fees.  The nub of the issue was that different lawyers appeared to be giving different advice (as lawyers are wont to do) about the law in this area, with some claiming that the Welsh Government could find itself open to paying fees for all EU students studying in the UK.

I still suspect, as I noted at the time, that this is one of those situations where only a test case will prove who is right and who is wrong; but I couldn’t see how anyone’s interest would be served by bringing such a test case.

I still don’t see whose interest would be served, but it looks as though we may be moving to a position where a test case becomes a possibility.  According to the Western Mail this morning, a “think-tank” which I’d never heard of before has decided to actively encourage EU students in England to apply to the Welsh Government for funding.

The “think-tank” concerned has a single-page web presence here, which actually tells us very little about them.  The banner at the top, showing a combination of the union flag and the stars and stripes makes me wonder what the nature of the US connection is, but there is little hard information to be had.  The Western Mail tells us that their spokesman is England-based – do they have any connection with Wales at all?

The key question, surely, is what the motivation is behind this intervention in Welsh politics.  It’s a question which the Western Mail seems not to have even asked. 

Their web page says that they want to expose the “stupidity and inequity” of the policy being pursued by “the Welsh Assembly” (sic – do they not understand the difference between the Assembly and the Government, and what does that say about their knowledge?).  But who would pay for them to do this, and if they’re not being paid for it, why would they divert time and effort into something which is more political campaign than policy research and development?

It’s an odd thing for a “think-tank” to do; and the report in the paper raised more questions than answers in my mind. 

I wasn’t particularly surprised at the Tories jumping on the bandwagon to criticise the policy yet again, although I still don’t understand why they think such a stance holds any political advantage for them.  Supporting an organisation based elsewhere in an attempt to undermine a popular policy doesn’t look like good politics to me.

Lawyers, advice, and politics

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There have been a few comments this week about the story which first appeared, according to Dylan J-E, in the Sunday Times.  It was based on an anonymous source who said that the Scottish Government had considered a similar approach to that in Wales for paying fees for Scottish students studying in England, but had rejected the idea on the basis of legal advice received.

The motive for the anonymous source who started this particular hare running is unclear, although the motivation of those who’ve jumped on the issue to attack the Welsh Government is all too clear.  Both the Tories and the Lib Dems are hostile to the way in which Wales is giving its students a better deal than they are receiving from the coalition in London, and are only too willing to undermine the policy in any way they can.  They will be happy only when Welsh students face the same crippling levels of debt as those from England.

But I wonder for how long they can go on demanding the impossible level of assurances which they seem to be seeking.  The initial report was based on ‘legal advice’.  Now I’m no lawyer, but I’ve had enough dealings with those offering ‘legal advice’ to know that it is often no more than an opinion on how the law might be interpreted, and that different lawyers might well come to different conclusions.  And so might judges.

I haven’t a clue how robust the advice given to the Welsh Government was.  It clearly does not draw the same conclusion as the advice given in Scotland, but as is ever the case, it only becomes clear who is right when a ruling has been made.  For the Welsh Government to give the absolute assurance being demanded by the Tories and Lib Dems is unlikely to be possible without a test case being brought.  Up until that point, it’s just a difference of legal opinion, compounded with a whole lot of political bluster.

And, apart from politics, I can’t see any motive for bringing a test case.  If the Welsh Government won, then the current situation could continue; and if they lost, then they’d have no choice but to scrap the current provision as it relates to Welsh students in England.  There’d be no winners, only losers.

And even at a political level, the Tories and Lib Dems might take some satisfaction if they were proved right, but I can’t think that many students or parents of students would share their satisfaction.  It doesn’t even look like good electoral politics.

Unintended consequences

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There was a report in the Sunday Times a week ago (hidden behind their paywall, I fear, although the Daily Mail picked up on it here) which suggested that English universities would be reducing their fees for ‘top’ students, defined as those getting at least AAB at A level.  It strikes me as being a good example of the law of unintended consequences - twice.

Having increased the levels of fees for all, capped the number of places, and then told universities that they must do more to attract students from less-privileged backgrounds, the government realised that the first unintended consequence would be that students with the ‘best’ A level results might be excluded in favour of those with less good scores.  Bad publicity, and not likely to be well-received amongst their voters.

So, they told universities that the cap wouldn’t apply to AAB or better, and that universities could recruit as many of those students as they liked.  Problem solved?  Not exactly – this in turn meant that recruiting these students became very attractive to universities, who were now having to compete for them.  And given the market-oriented approach so beloved of the government, what better way to recruit them than to reduce their fees.

And that brings us to the second, presumably unintended, consequence.

As the same newspaper reported yesterday, achievement of good grades at A level isn’t distributed evenly amongst the population as a whole.  Indeed, it seems that when it comes to A* grades for example, pupils at fee-paying schools gain more of them than do pupils at all the comprehensive schools put together, despite only constituting 15% of the pupils.

This is nothing new; there is a well-known correlation between the ‘best’ results and the ‘best’ schools, and thus, in turn, with the highest family incomes.  The result is that many of the students most likely to qualify for the discount will also be those from the most privileged backgrounds, who attended the best schools and had the best support, whilst those paying the full fees will be more likely to be those from the poorest backgrounds.

It’s not quite as black and white as that, of course – some pupils achieve high (or low) scores regardless of their background.  But there is a correlation, and to the extent that that correlation applies here, it means that the targeting of reduced fees is completely the reverse of what economic fairness would suggest.

I’ve yet to see how the Welsh Government will respond to the situation – but I hope that we won’t see Welsh policy emulating England in this case.

It's our sovereignty

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The Sunday Times carried an article at the weekend on a plan by senior Tories to push through legislation to outlaw what the paper called “anti-English discrimination” in relation to tuition fees at Scottish universities.  The move would also apply to the policy here in Wales although, as usual, the situation in Wales was barely mentioned.  The article was backed up by an editorial column which fulminated against “Scotland’s unfair penalty on the English”. 

The ‘senior Tories’ concerned are apparently considering amendments to equality legislation, since that is a reserved matter, to specify that devolved governments cannot treat residents of one part of the UK any differently from those of any other part.   It would effectively require either that Wales and Scotland follow the English line on fees, or else that we use our devolved budgets to pay for the education of those from outside the devolved nations studying in our institutions.

In essence, it undermines the whole concept of devolution.  Giving Wales and Scotland some powers and a budget necessarily means an acceptance that there will be differences in the way resources are allocated and priorities set.  But if there can be, effectively, no difference in outcome for citizens of the different countries of the UK, then decision-making capacity is seriously constrained.

The idea of using the Equalities legislation is akin to the earlier idea of using the Human Rights legislation, which was floated at the time of the debate about the LCO on presumed consent.  I noted at the time that it was a dangerous precedent, since it’s a route which can potentially be applied to a whole range of issues.

It would be easy, of course, to assume that this is just another case of ‘not getting’ devolution.  But at another level, it demonstrates only too well an understanding of the simple dictum that “power devolved is power retained”.  We can make any decisions we like, as long as those who have loaned us the power to make them don’t disagree.

And that goes to the heart of the difference between devolutionists and nationalists.  For them, power belongs to the crown-in-parliament, and can be loaned to us or taken back as and when they wish.  For us, it belongs to us as citizens, and we can decide to whom we delegate different elements of that power - and for how long.

The real counter-argument to the likes of those Tories who are seeking to re-assert central control isn’t simply about defending devolution – either as an event or a process.  We need to challenge their underlying assumptions and proclaim loudly and frequently that it is for us to decide where power lies. 

I’m well aware, of course, that if the people of Wales were given a choice today as to where power should lie, they would probably choose to leave most of it in Westminster, whilst beefing up the Assembly with come extra powers.  And probably withdraw from the EU as well.  I’d disagree with leaving so much power at Westminster, and want to remain in the EU, and I’d seek to persuade people otherwise. 

But persuading them otherwise has to start with convincing them that they have the right to make the decisions in the first place.  Devolutionism isn’t even trying to do that, let alone succeeding, and it’s time for nationalists to be more confident about explaining the difference.  Sovereignty belongs to the people, not parliament.  And certainly not to the Crown.

Interesting logic

Tweet A letter in this week's 'Carmarthen Journal' drew my attention to a report that I somehow missed in the same paper a week or two before Christmas.  The report covers the reactions of local MPs to the vote on the increase in tuition fees.

There should be no surprise, of course, about the fact that the Tory MP for Carmarthen West supported his government's policy; but the refreshing honesty with which he explains his actions is rather more surprising.  He refers directly to the fact that "it's not going to affect Welsh students", because of course the decision in Wales is devolved to the Welsh Government.  "Lucky Wales", he might almost have added, "that students here won't suffer as a result of my support for government policies".

It does, once again, highlight the 'West Lothian question'; there is surely something very wrong with a situation where MPs can happily vote in favour of an unpopular policy on the basis that it doesn't affect their own constituents.

More wriggling from the Lib Dems

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I heard a Lib Dem MP verbally wriggling yesterday as he tried to explain why the proposed changes on tuition fees are not in breach of the pledge which his party made at the election in May.  His argument was that there were actually two elements to the pledge; the first was no increase in fees, and the second was to make the system fairer.  And they had succeeded, he said, in the second.

He actually went further and described the changes to the repayment rules as turning the fees from a debt into a graduate tax, because the amount owed was no longer a total which had to be repaid, but a maximum which people would repay according to ability to pay.  It was a valiant effort.

It does, though, highlight a point that I’ve made before; the difference between student debt and a graduate tax is more in the eye of the beholder than a difference of substance.  Simply calling it something different and changing the rules for repayment are not enough to alter the underlying fact that students are incurring a significant future liability in order to pay for their university education.

Changing the nomenclature and a bit of clever presentation are not the same thing as abolishing student debt, and making the system ‘fairer’ is not the same as overturning it.  But I guess that some politicians will continue trying to persuade us that they are.

Changing the arguments

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There is no doubt that the decision by the Welsh Government to abolish the Tuition Fee Grant from September this year was one of the most problematic issues for Plaid since entering the One Wales coalition.  It led to a number of difficult discussions at the time, but coalition sometimes means having to accept decisions by ministers of the other party with which you strongly disagree.

By comparison, the decision announced yesterday by Leighton Andrews that Welsh students will not have to pay the increases faced by English students is an extremely welcome one.  With fees likely to rise from £3290 to up to £9000, the decision that the Welsh Government will pay the difference of up to £5710 is, I think, absolutely the right decision.  Ensuring that we have a well-educated population, and that all of our young people are enabled to receive the best education that they can get, are some of the key things that we can do to build our collective future.

It also highlights the difference which devolved power can make in enabling Wales to follow a different path where that is the best thing for our nation.

There are one or two nagging little questions in the back of my mind, though, given what looks like a major turnaround from the arguments used when the previous grant was abolished.  I have an instinctive aversion to inconsistency, whether by friends or opponents, and I like to understand what has changed.

In abolishing the tuition fee grant, the then minister Jane Hutt, said that paying £1890 per student per annum was neither affordable nor a good use of funds in what were described at the time as challenging economic circumstances.  Her replacement, Leighton Andrews, now seems to be saying that paying up to £5710 per student per annum is both affordable and a good use of funds, although the economic circumstances are, if anything, rather more challenging.

Similarly, the fact that the Welsh Government had to pay the same level of grant for EU nationals studying in Wales was presented as a problem two years ago.  Now it is dismissed as not being a problem because of reciprocity – Welsh students studying elsewhere in the EU benefit from the ‘local’ rules.

I suppose that it could just be down to having a more enlightened Education Minister, but I find it hard to escape the conclusion that the General Election in May this year just might have been the factor which has led to Labour’s change of heart.  A reluctance to take a different view from a Labour Government in London appears to have been replaced by a certain amount of delight in taking a different view from a Conservative-led Government.

Whatever the reason, it’s a welcome turnaround, and good news for Welsh students and their families.

Twisting and Turning

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The Lib Dems continue to twist and turn over student fees, desperately seeking a way out which enables them to support their ministers whilst retaining some integrity around the promise that they made at the last election. 

Labour, meanwhile, are showing the zeal of the convert as they attack the government’s decision to do what the review set up by Labour recommended.  We should not forget that it was Labour who drew up the terms of reference, and Labour who appointed Lord Browne to conduct the review; the results can hardly have been a surprise to them. 

Things could have been very different, of course.  The Lib Dems could have decided not to join a regressive coalition with the Tories, and joined a regressive coalition with Labour instead.  For reasons which completely escaped me at the time, and which escape me still, there were some within Plaid who publicly suggested that Plaid MPs should join the same regressive alliance.

Had that alternative coalition come about, we would now have those Labour MPs who say that higher fees are unacceptable explaining why they are essential, whilst the Tories currently backing the plans would be vociferously attacking their unfairness.  The Lib Dems would still be twisting and turning of course; there’s no respite for them.  But they might have been joined by Plaid MPs, finding themselves in a similar position to that of the party’s AMs in Cardiff Bay.

In the great game of Westminster politics played by the Labour and Conservative parties, the nature of their deeply-held ‘beliefs’ often seems to depend more on which side of the House they happen to be sitting at the time than on anything else. 

For the people affected by their decisions, it’s far more important than that.  This really is not a game.

Meaningless Conscience Salving

Tweet The 'strong hints' being dropped by leading Lib Dems that there will, after all, be a cap on the level of fees charged by universities is clearly aimed at reassuring their supporters that they haven't completely abandoned their opposition.  But it's a meaningless concession if the level is set so high, as seems likely, as to prevent no university from charging the amount which they were planning on anyway.

Telling universities that they can go so far, but no further, is just a pointless bit of rhetoric if they weren't planning to go that far anyway.  But in fact, it could actually have a negative impact on the situation - the upper limit could rapidly become the norm.  Universities which were thinking in terms of a lower number could end up standardising at the same level as everyone else.  It may not be what the Lib Dems intend; but that's the whole point about the law of unintended consequences.