Labour muddle

十一月 7, 2003

I was delighted to read that higher education minister Alan Johnson now supports the Liberal Democrat policy of a £2,000 maintenance grant, though disappointed to read a few paragraphs later that the Department for Education and Skills views his stance as not living in the "real world", ("Minister favours doubling grants in line with Scotland", THES , October 24).

Sadly, Mr Johnson's support for a maintenance grant is undermined by the revelation that the government expects low-income students to use their grant to pay for tuition costs.

Ministers believe that they can exempt about a third of students from paying fees by lumping together existing fees concessions and the grant, with the difference made up by the universities out of their fees income.

In practice, even the poorest students will not receive any maintenance grant and the universities will be more than £110 million out of pocket.

If the government believes that this is how it will "buy off" potential rebels, let alone the Liberal Democrats, it has another thing coming.

David Rendel MP
Liberal Democrat spokesperson on higher education

请先注册再继续

为何要注册?

  • 注册是免费的,而且十分便捷
  • 注册成功后,您每月可免费阅读3篇文章
  • 订阅我们的邮件
注册
Please 登录 or 注册 to read this article.