Vince Cable Defends Tuition Fee Rise in Talk at UEA

Vince Cable graced Thomas Paine this week, not to check out the comfiest chairs on campus, but to give a talk on ‘The Centre Left Battleground’.

Mr Cable, who has been Business Secretary since the Coalition took power in 2010, stood by the Lib Dems’ controversial U-turn over tuition fees in his speech.

He neglected to mention the trebling of tuition fees until a second year Politics student asked him how he expected people to trust the Liberal Democrats after they broke their promise to vote against a rise in tuition fees. He rushed to defend the policy, stating: “We got 1/10 on politics, but 9/10 on policy”, meaning that although the promise the Lib Dems made was misguided, the policy the Coalition created was successful.

There was a great turn out for the speech, held at the Thomas Paine Study Centre

Mr Cable praised the repayment of student loans as a “graduate tax” and contrasted it to the repayment of student debt under the previous fees of £3000 a year, which were not related to what graduates earned. He also pointed out that the higher fees had not put students off applying to uni and that the number of students applying from disadvantaged backgrounds were, in fact, at an all time high.

Some members of the audience still questioned his judgement, and another student asked whether he was being too quick to judge the success of the scheme before the first wave of students had graduated.

Mr Cable’s words have provoked anger among students, particularly those who supported the Liberal Democrats before the 2010 election on the basis of their opposition to increased fees. However, Mr Cable stood firm on the issue, saying: “I don’t feel at all apologetic about the policy… except that we shouldn’t have made the pledge.”