We Owe Lib Dem Voters an Apology

Let's face it. The Lib Dems have really screwed up on tuition fees. It's possibly our most public screw up ever. Our candidates made high profile personal pledges that they should have foreseen not being able to keep. The party is now in the position where breaking these pledges is the best option, for the following reasons:

Graph: IFS

1. The Browne Report's proposals are unexpectedly fair. They are progressive (which we didn't expect before the review was published), they are workable (unlike a graduate tax, as Labour are soon to realise) and they will improve the quality of teaching (unlike free tuition) and will deliver improved access for students from poor backgrounds.* Indeed the policy beats the Lib Dem manifesto pledge on all of these tests. When a better policy comes along, we should back it, even if it costs us popularity - otherwise we're doing the wrong thing simply out of self interest.

2. Further to the above point, if we keep up the pretence that our original policy was fairer, we will be fuelling the misconception that University is inaccessible to the poor. This misconception must be tackled, because if potential students incorrectly perceive they can't afford to go, they won't, and social mobility will be entrenched. It is our duty to promote at every opportunity how the Coalition's policy will improve access to Higher Education. If you back the wrong policy, you inadvertently back everything you've stood against.

3. Even if you disagree with the analysis above, we realistically can't stop tuition fees from going up. To do so would mean all our Ministers voting against the government, thus ending the Coalition, and bringing on a Tory minority government or a general election. We can't let a single issue jeopardise the 91 other Lib Dem policies that can be achieved as part of the Coalition.

Backing the Coalition's policy is the right thing to do, but means breaking a promise, and when you break a promise, you apologise. It will hurt, it may cost us support, but it's right.

* I encourage you to read Ewan Hoyle's excellent blogpost for more on this.

What Nick Clegg Actually Said About Tuition Fees

Lots of spinning going on over the Lib Dems commitment to phase out tuition fees. Labourite tweets from the likes of @2pallas tried to suggest that the Lib Dems had scrapped the tuition fees pledge. Conservative blogger Declan Lyons suggested that the policy was all over the place:

the policy was dropped as they couldn't afford it. Then they picked it up again. Now, it has just been extended to be done over more time.

All not true.

The policy was never dropped at Conference. What Clegg said was

Ending tuition fees would cost billions of pounds every year - we need to be certain we can afford it before we make any promises.

So he said that given the state of the country's finances, the policy's affordability needed to be checked.

Then, the new policy of phasing out tuition fees over 6 years was announced last month. This made the long standing commitment affordable.

Today, Clegg has simply restated this pledge as part of a wider message about only promising what could be afforded. On the Today programme, he said:

We will not be able to deliver our pledge on scrapping tuition fees - something we are determined to do - on the timetable we have once envisaged.

So the same policy as announced earlier this month.

Nick Clegg has been totally consistent over tuition fees. Any suggestion otherwise is desperate spin from the opposition.