Tuition Fees

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I shall deal with interventions in a moment.

I remind the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen that Members from all parties are skating on thin ice when it comes to student financing. He was in the House at the time, so he will remember the pledge on which he campaigned. The right hon. Gentleman quoted our pledge, so I shall quote the pledge on which he campaigned:

“We will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated to prevent them.”

He and his colleagues then voted to do just that.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Vince Cable]

Wait a moment. I shall deal with interventions later.

There was no coalition agreement. The Labour Government had a majority of 167. There was no financial crisis. At the time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going round telling us that Britain was outperforming every Government since the days of the Hanoverians. There was no economic crisis, yet the Labour Government introduced a system that transferred the burden of paying for universities from the state to individual graduates. They introduced it. We are now dealing with a real crisis and we are trying to deal with it in a coalition context. That is the issue the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen has to address.