Reaction to the Browne Report

The debate over university funding, which one might expect  to be a simple case of measuring up public good against individual benefit arguments turns out to be a good deal more complicated politically. One of the reasons is that universities enjoy a peculiar moral standing as a result of their historical importance (universities returned MPs until the 1948 Parliament Act abolished them) and their symbolic value for the aspirational. There are also a number of different interest groups, including nearly two million students (often concentrated in constituencies around universities, employees and the parents who are forced to support the lifestyle of their offspring if they do not qualify for a grant. Higher Education is a poorly organised sector when one compares it to schools backed by teacher’s unions and local councils, but it carries considerable weight, not least because the Liberal Democrats have a large following in university seats.

One of the recurring problems with the university sector is that, like health, governments are frequently shamed when a smaller portion of our GDP is devoted to it than in other countries. Britain spends about 1.3% of its GDP on higher education, compared to a 1.5% average across the OECD and over 3% in the USA. It is funded less as a proportion (about 50:50 currently) by the public sector than France, Germany or the Netherlands, but more than in South Korea, Australia or the USA, which are amongs the bigger spenders.

Since it became the policy of the British government to expand the participation of school-leavers in higher education (to around 30% under John Major, who famously didn’t go to university) and 50% under New Labour (it has stubbornly stuck at 46%), the university sector has struggled to fund its expansion of places. In 2004, Tony Blair and Charles Clarke made the decision to charge a restricted fee of up to £3,000 per student, per year to fund this expansion, with a system of loans made available so that university remained free at the point of delivery. As Blair later remarked, he came closer to losing his job over the Bill than over Iraq. However, the effects have proved relatively benign. Prospective students have largely not been deterred, and the Browne report found that two-thirds of the extra funding has been spent on staffing, with a further quarter devoted to bursaries and outreach.

In 2009 the dying Labour government launched the Browne report, largely to kick the issue beyond the next election, but with a wide remit to investigate the effects of student funding on the sustainability of the universities and the affordability for students. The terms of reference included;

• The goal of widening participation;
• The affordability for students and their families of studying;
• The best value for taxpayers;
• Simplification of the system.

A Bugger’s Muddle

Since the launch, the austerity agenda has overtaken the fees debate. The government, which floated and then quashed the idea of the graduate tax, can hardly deny that it has had an influence in shaping the report that is now in the public domain. Among the least advertised of Browne’s recommendations is that the public funding of universities, and in particular the element earmarked for teaching resources in those subjects not deemed priorities (most of them), is dramatically pared down. The result is that universities would be forced to charge over £6,000 in order to maintain the same level of funding that they enjoy under the existing system (p. 46).

The government has advanced largely in the dark, afraid to sound radical, but bound to act in the national interest as it sees it. The cap has been removed from tuition fees but the hope is that universities will voluntarily restrict them on the basis that the government will not guarantee unrecovered fees over £6,000 (a noticeable drop from the £7,000 that was briefed). Students will pay back the cost of their own degrees, but only when they earn more than £21,000 and a form of graduate tax may be introduced by stealth in tiered interest rates on the loan.

Whether a market in tuition fees is a good idea remains to be seen. The very best universities seem certain to charge excessive amounts for some of their courses. An MA in History at the London School of Economics currently costs £14,000. The next big development in universities might, therefore, be the Oxford School of Debt Collectors.

Smaller universities and those enjoying less grand reputations are more likely to charge below the unofficial cap, though very few do currently. This will attract more students, but whether demand will improve these universities seems to be uncertain.

The other unspoken truth is that some degrees cost a considerable amount more than others. Fees of £14,000 would buy an impressive history education, probably including the cost of living in the country you were studying. However, they would not buy a first class medical degree. The Browne report does not go into the likely economics of a market in tuition fees, which may push prospective students towards less expensive or more profitable disciplines. That has the potential to do some damage not only to our education system but to our way of life.

Get Smart

Given that today’s students will be the future tomorrow, the National Union of Students (NUS) has been short-sighted and surprisingly inflexible. The NUS opposed tuition fees from the start and is now weighing in against raising the levels of said fees. This is despite the fact that rises in tuition fees were always inevitable, therefore making the organisation seem even more irrelevant than it actually is.

What the NUS should be arguing for is a student’s agenda to go with the increased funding. Too many universities spend their resources on fancy new administration buildings or accommodation for international students. Yesterday, discreetly hidden in the Evening Standard, LSE announced plans to push ahead with a new £21m student’s union, which is hardly a necessity, although of course, these projects can sometimes increase revenue, or be fair in themselves, such as living wage campaigns at UCL.

In fact, like a student who spends all week going out but quietly and discreetly works during the day, the NUS has been more productive than it appears and the Browne report has floated several ideas around making student funding fairer. One has been lobbied for by the Open University, and concerns extending grants to part-time students. The others require universities to expand student places by 10%, to increase laboratory hours and to obtain teaching qualifications for staff. These proposals sound promising, but had the NUS been sharper or more able to cooperate with the Russell Group, it might have been able to achieve increased contact times across the board, a proportion of university budgets set aside for teaching and greater resources, such as podcasts and digitised chapters where demand highest. These are the bread and butter of the debate about what students should be getting out of university.

The Labour Party will find it difficult to contest Vince Cable’s reforms, having introduced the fees originally and despite the two key parts of the reform (the cap and state contributions) that the government is doing away with. They will almost certainly vote against the government, which needs more than half of its Liberal Democrat members to support any measures introduced, but will hope for the Bill to go through so that they don’t have to deal with its sharp edges in the next Parliament. They are also open to the continued claim of ‘deficit denial’. Nonetheless, there are practical suggestions for reform that could also be used to embarrass the government’s apparent lack of rigour. It will be interesting to see how hard Ed Miliband and John Denham lead into the debate, starting with Prime Minister’s Questions.

 

Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties

As Britain’s political elite wait for this Parliament to begin its most significant work – starting with tomorrow’s budget – one of the issues that has been highest on the agenda is the Coalition Agreement to introduce anonymity for defendants in rape cases.. Much to the frustration of the Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke – this is originally a Lib Dem policy – a predominantly female group of Labour MPs have been regularly ambushing the government at business questions, PMQs and Justice Questions.

There are several reasons for the notoriety this question has raised. On the one hand, it is a useful tool for Labour to beat the government with in its honeymoon period, when few proposals with clear consequences have been announced. The other factor is that the great strides Labour has made in the representation of women in the House of Commons. It is now fair to say that if there is not exactly a female lobby, it is no longer necessary for ambitious women to play up to the party leadership to be a success.

Should anyone accuse me of sexism, the gender card has already been played by Maria Eagles, who accused the government of failing to involve women in its discussions. Caroline Flint is leading the charge and has given an interview to Today in Parliament, as well as intervening in debates on the subject. Her argument is somewhat contrary – the fact that other crimes have a stigma attached is a good argument for extending anonymity, and the supposed signal being sent out about the trustworthiness of victims is worth considering, but doesn’t challenge the point in question head on. Flint is also flimsy on whether there is a great deal of evidence, and whether it is important.

All of this raises some legal questions that are finely balanced, and they are given urgency by a growing culture of victim’s rights. The law on the admission of previous convictions as part of a trial is quite complicated, being subject to a number of tests in the interest of justice. The Scottish Law Commission, which is currently looking at the admission of previous convictions (currently relevant only in sentencing). The recent recurrence of the case of Jon Venables, killer of Jamie Bulger, briefly ignited a debate about whether a case should be tried purely on its merits, or whether it should take in a wider body of evidence.

Liberty made the point in their submission to the last committee to consider the question (and bear in mind that anonymity – meaning a ban on the press coverage of a defendant’s identity – was introduced between 1976 and 1984) that there is a public and a narrow interest in press scrutiny as one of the guarantees of a fair crime. But the interests of the defendant should not be trampled, even if false accusations prove to be a small percentage of the total.

The worst thing that could happen would be for this debate to turn into one about increasing the admittedly woeful rate of prosecution in rape cases, and for the ‘public stocks’ option to be the only one on the table. We are cosy about which of our civil liberties we really believe in, and which we will readily sacrifice to the public safety test, and this is an opportunity for broader thinking than currently looks likely.

Furthermore, it may prove a misreading of the public mood if Labour were to end up on the wrong side of the civil liberties argument. There is plenty of talent chomping at the bit on the Labour benches, and with a re-imagining of British spending commitments and education policy brewing, there are many areas to make a mark on. As they say, however, only fools rush in.

The Axeman Cometh

Labour underestimated George Osborne. “Where’s George?’ went the cry, assuming that Osborne was somehow the dark and scary underbelly of the Conservative Party, the sight of which would repel swing voters. Far from being hidden away, however, George was planning the election. And ultimately, he delivered.

Back in 2007, when Gordon Brown was riding high in the polls, Osborne saw that the rise in house prices had made a new swathe of people worried about the impact of inheritance tax on the estate they hoped to hand down to their children. Though it became an easy spot for Labour to jab at, it was in fact such a clever ploy to offer to raise the threshold, that Brown demanded that Labour adopt it.

Then came last year’s ‘austerity’ speech – the ‘we’re all in it together’ number. Again, some voters will have rebelled at the notion of cuts and it allowed Labour to fight a spirited rearguard campaign, but the speech had a more important effect. Firstly, it divided the Labour Party and called their economic management into question (subtly changing the terms of debate from the black eye given to the Conservatives over the banking crisis). Secondly, it got the chattering classes and the media obsessed with the idea that Britain was going down the tube – good for column inches. Finally, it allowed the Conservatives to criticise Labour’s plans to raise more taxes and to portray themselves as the party of enterprise and growth.

So Osborne’s latest coup de theâtre is just that, a political rather than an economic ploy. He has played up to the capital markets, helped in his cause by the fervours of the Greek debt crisis, and focussed the political light on what he would like to characterise as wasteful, or reckless spending.

Of course there is waste in government, as in every walk of life. Yet the notion that you should suddenly cut back on all of the systems designed to improve efficiency – and that might as well include cab fares – is ludicrous. ID Cards will be scrapped, but the savings will be so minimal that they aren’t even mentioned in news bulletins.

Some of these cuts will make a difference, though. The decision to abolish Child Trust Funds makes a mockery of the ‘Great Ignored’ that Cameron claimed to be fighting this election for. Instead, the poorest will simply become the new ignored, just as they used to be the old ignored.

Many will call the decision to give capital grants of £500 (in two instalments) extravagant. Admittedly, there was a case for means-testing the trust fund to return it to its original purpose of fiscally educating and capitalising the most socially and economically disadvantaged. And that is why the cuts announced by Osborne really sting – it’s not so much the £6bn, which we were all expecting, but the decimal point. Those extra £200 millions would have made up nearly half the trust fund budget, but instead they were culled, without study, without consultation, and within two weeks of taking office.

David Laws justified the decision by saying that those currently enjoying the benefits (and none are yet old enough to actually access them) will be better served by not being loaded with debt. What excuse is that? What kind of Liberal doesn’t believe in ensuring a widely distributed stake in the future? A minor modification to the scheme – to transform it into a voucher for higher education, for example, could have had the same effect and excluded the Liberal-Conservative fear that these payments are not socially-useful. Their very nature was that their utility was for the individual to decide, and what could be more Liberal than that?

Pushed to the back pages – page 42 in Saturday’s Guardian and not even on the front page of the BBC News website – was an interesting story. Britain’s borrowing estimates have been revised down by more than Osborne has just announced in cuts; £6.4bn. Income, capital gains and Value Added taxes all brought in more than expected – people are still earning and spending, which is a more useful measure of confidence than this misplaced faith in speculators.

Even so, the die is cast; the decision to cut spending has been made. The manner in which it has been taken is wearying. Among the cuts were ten thousand pledged university places in the sciences and technological courses. Also unable the escape the axe was the strategic investment fund, which directs investment to businesses that will drive future growth.

This government has a mistaken faith in the market to provide economic growth in Britain. In fact, laissez faire will not do, just as planning did not in the Post-War years. Osborne’s economic premise is that tax cuts are economically more efficient than spending. In this he is joined by his Liberal colleagues, who in 2005 were considering proposing a flat tax for the UK.

Flat taxes have been successful in Eastern Europe, where wages tend to be lower than neighbours (unlike the UK, and particularly if immigration is restricted). Ireland, which was lauded a few years ago for its low taxes and booming economy, is now one of the countries teetering on the brink of the Eurozone debt crisis. Lower taxes in themselves will not save the British economy. Instead, we will rely as always on our infrastructure and ingenuity. The Boy George has certainly learnt to colour in between the lines, but he hasn’t yet attempted to join the dots.

A Liberal Moment

It is a little over two years since Nick Clegg referred to the Liberal Democrats as ‘very much a national party,’ the only opposition to Labour in the North, and the Conservatives in the South. Now, the Liberal Democrats are in power for the first time, and Clegg holds the office of Deputy Prime Minister, albeit in a state of affairs described by William Hague as the best of their ideas (and people), and the bulk of the Conservatives’. And yet, there is little disguising the extraordinary way in which the Lib Dems have been incorporated into Conservative plans. Although there have undoubtedly been compromises on both sides, the negotiations of these past four days have struck everyone by their seriousness and affability.

The Coalescing of the Parties

Only the most die-hard activist (on either side) would deny that the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have had much more in common in recent years. In the early years of the now historical Labour government, the Conservatives went right under William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, focussing on immigration and cession of powers to Europe, while Charles Kennedy (after Paddy Ashdown had taken the Party closer than it wanted to be to the Labour Party), gave the impression that the Liberal Democrats were the party of the Left with his opposition to Iraq and to Top-Up Fees.

Since then modernisers have risen on both sides and moderators to both leaderships. The Liberal Democrats, intellectually driven by David Laws and the Orange Book Liberals, began the acceptance of the Blairite line on public services – reform led by markets. The Conservative intellectual revival was driven by the young Notting Hill set, but particularly by Michael Gove, the one-time biographer of Michael Portillo and proponent of Burkean Toryism.

The recession has also had a significant impact on both sides. For Cameron, it necessitated the return of Ken Clarke to the Shadow Cabinet and let loose George Osborne’s tax-cutting instincts. The Liberal Democrats had adopted a policy of tax cuts for low-earners and saw the logic of becoming more critical of Gordon Brown’s efforts to prop-up the economy through state-action. Nonetheless, the oracular Vince Cable’s tendency to criticise the Conservatives as much as Labour, their position on Trident and Chris Huhne’s previous advocacy of green taxes maintained the impression that they were a party of the centre left.

Cameron’s Clause IV

That all changed with the General Election of last Thursday. Clegg had said during the campaign that he felt that the winner of the ‘largest mandate’ deserved the first opportunity to form of government in the case of a hung Parliament and that he would find it difficult to work with Brown (who, by Andrew Rawnsley’s account had been particularly patronising to his opposites during the expenses crisis). Accordingly, and despite a disappointing net loss of seats in the aftermath of the election, Liberal Democrat negotiators (Clegg’s Chief of Staff, Danny Alexander, David Laws and Chris Huhne), met with Hague, Osborne and Oliver Letwin to discuss areas they could co-operate on.

It is hard to conclude other than that both leaders were immediately in favour of a coalition, surprising a result though that is. For the Liberal Democrats, it would offer the best chance of their policies being implemented and an opportunity to present themselves creditably to the electorate as a party of government. Cameron arguably had less to gain, and could have opted for a confidence agreement, whereby the Liberal Democrats would back the Conservatives on key votes. That would not, however, have offered the stability that Cameron craved to make a successful fist of reforming the economy and public services.

Even so, Cameron has given a lot of ground. The Liberal Democrats bring with them commitments to tax cuts for middle-earners, increased spending on schools and civil liberties. Admittedly, there are those in the Conservative Party who agree, but those belong largely to the modernising vanguard. Cameron has also sacrificed Chris Grayling for his recent inability to stand up for gay rights, but the most significant concessions involve political reform. Cameron has locked himself and his party into the deal for five years and has promised to deliver a referendum on the Alternate Vote System (although he will campaign for a ‘no’). There is even the suggestion that Proportional Representation will be introduced for the House of Lords.

This constitutional radicalism has earned Cameron comparisons to Disraeli, the Conservative statesman who trumped the Liberals by expanding the franchise further and faster than Gladstone. Cameron will certainly be thinking that the strong share of the vote that the Conservatives have traditionally had in the twentieth century can give them the edge in a more proportional system, and he must be calculating that an alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is a more natural beast than between Labour and the Lib Dems.

It is difficult to say what kind of ideology motivates Cameron. Indeed, he has always given the impression of being a pragmatist – as The Economist approvingly noticed last week. Notably, it was for Clegg to speak at their joint press conference of ‘a radical, reforming government,’ but his affirmation of a common purpose was striking;

This is a government that will last because despite those differences, we are united by a common purpose for the job we want to do in the next five years.

Our ambition is simple and yet profound. Our ambition is to put real power and opportunity into the hands of people, families, and communities to change their lives and our country for the better.

For me, that is what liberalism is all about: ensuring that everyone has the chance, no matter who they are and where they are from, to be the person they want to be. To live the life they want to live.

You can call it fairness. You can call it responsibility. You can call it liberalism. Whatever words you use the change it will make to your life is the same.

(The Guardian bitterly suggested that you might call it wishful thinking).

For Cameron, the government was predictably more about business. His paean to strong government might have come from Hague’s biography of Pitt the Younger, but he also talked of a ‘historic new direction…of hope and unity, conviction and common purpose.’ Cameron has purported to be a One Nation Tory and his government will be measured as much against its social impact as its economic orthodoxy.

For this reason, another significant part of the agreement is ‘the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups.’ This will need to be made accountable and to be properly funded. Margaret Thatcher’s total opposition to local government was at the root of her poll tax and therefore her downfall, but the rumours of a greatly enhanced Office of the Mayor of London and Scottish Parliament promise a more Chamberlainite future.

Will it Last?

Matthew Paris’ sunny dispositon (“I ought to be cynical, I ought to be saying it’s all going to end in tears, but I just sense something good and genuine in the air and it just might work. You almost have a sense of two men staging a coup against the British political system,”) seems typical of the mood at the moment. The two parties have not merged, however, and nor have we necessarily seen a permanent rupture in the British political system. This is a finely negotiated programme for government, as much as a statement of ideals.

Any one of a number of crises or changes in the weather could make this coalition unsustainable. Among the front-running contenders would be a movement for further integration in Europe, war in the Balkans or a breakpoint with Iran. More serious still, perhaps, would be a fall in the standard of living through some further recession or greater unemployment. As a general rule, governments tend to be more unified when they have money to spend, and this Parliament will see little of that. However, Cameron has been smart to ask a Liberal Democrat to be his executioner in the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Political factions will also have a role. Labour lost the election because the feel-good feeling had left them and their rearguard in favour of a ‘Future Fair For All’ seemed hopeless. A rejuvenated party could help to suppress dissent within the coalition, but it could also start to tempt Liberal Democrats away from their current partners. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats claimed that their negotiations collapsed on the basis of ‘deliverability,’ although it looks more like Clegg was forced to make overtures when his party expressed doubts about the Conservative offer on Monday evening. Then again, the Labour and Conservative reactions (David Blunkett likened them to ‘every harlot in history’ and Sir Malcolm Rifkind expressed a sense of betrayal occasioned by Brown’s game-changing resignation) will likely dissuade a precipitate withdrawal.

Then there are Cameron’s back-benchers, and indeed certain of the old-guard within his Cabinet. Ian Duncan Smith’s Work and Pensions brief will pander to Tory (lack of) sympathies to unemployment and William Hague is a noted Eurosceptic and realist in foreign affairs. Some activists have been critical of a lacklustre campaign, which they felt should have been won outright and would have been with good old Conservative values, and plenty of leadership rivals (David Davis and Liam Fox) lurk on the right wing of the party.

Ultimately, ideology is a luxury for any government and despite the fixed term, the fortunes of the coalition, the Prime Minister and his Deputy depend on the perceived likelihood of an electoral success for either party. If things are going badly, the Conservatives will want to shift right, and the Liberal Democrats will want to disinvest themselves of responsibility. This government’s ambition to devolve power will depend on whether people are willing to get involved, and whether public services will improve, but an age of prosperity will certainly not harm its chances.