House of Lords blocks Tory proposal to link tuition fee rises to league table ranking

The house of lords defeats UK government’s plans to link English universities performance with their maximum tuition fees.

Members of the house of lords voted 263 to 211 in a favour of an amendment to stop the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) from allowing Universities to charge higher fees based on their calibre. Under plans proposed by the universities minister, Jo Johnson, based on a gold, silver and bronze ranking, the better-placed Universities would have had a right to significantly raise tuition fees in line with inflation.

CUSU organised a boycott of the NSS

Proposed plans would also have allowed better-ranked universities to recruit more international students. Such plans have also been rejected by the Lords.

Students unions including the NUS and CUSU had announced a boycott of the National Students Satisfaction Survey, itself a part of the TEF. However in a cross bench move involving Labour’s Lord Stevenson and the Liberal Democrat’s Baroness Garden, an amendment was proposed severing any link between a university’s ranking and it’s ability to charge higher fees.

The amendment is good news for Cambridge students, who were almost certain to face fee rises under the new legislation. However, House of Commons will now have the right to vote on rejecting the amendment in a months time.

In a Facebook post, Roberta Huldisch praised the move, putting it down to the work of NUS and CUSU. “Students’ relentless campaigning, shouting, lobbying and NSS boycotting has paid off,” said Roberta, in an emoji-laden post.

‘We actually did something’

“We’re not sure what exactly this will mean yet in practice but THIS right here is what NUS can do for you and what CUSU can do for you if we stick together as a national movement and use the power we have as students”

We just hope they all won their free Ipads too.