All Lib Dem ministers will back rise in tuition fees

[vanman]

All Liberal Democrat government ministers will vote to raise the cap on university tuition fees in England, party leader Nick Clegg has said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11935176

looks like they have decided before the vote.
how democratic is that

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11939714

[Hugh]

erm, they are Ministers in the Government - collective responsibility.

If they don't want the responsibility that goes with the position, resign.

[Ignitionnet]

Indeed, how dare ministers decide how to vote on their own coalition's policies in advance of the vote.

1/10.

[vanman]

so tell me what is the point of having a vote in the first place.
vote as i tell you to
or resign

[Matt D]

Do you understand how voting in the House of Commons works?

[vanman]

Originally Posted by Matt D

Do you understand how voting in the House of Commons works?

i thought i did
someone has a big idea and they vote to see if they all agree or not.
if they agree it becomes policy or law.

[Matt D]

Well, re. "how democratic is that" & "what is the point of having a vote in the first place" etc. ...

As mentioned by Hugh, there is such a thing as Collective Responsibility: Ministers have to vote with the Government that they are a part of, or resign their position.

Not a new thing, and not unique to this vote, this Government, or this Parliament.


For the Tuition Fees vote, the Coalition Agreement between the Tories & Lib Dems does allow for Lib Dem MPs to abstain "If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept". It is not specifically clear on what Lib Dem Ministers can do though. However, for Lib Dem Ministers to abstain from supporting an agreed policy of the Coalition Government, a policy which the Deputy PM (Lib Dem MP & party leader Nick Clegg) & Business Secretary (Lib Dem MP Vince Cable) both (apparently) actually support, could cause issues I think... [EDIT: Actually, apparently Lib Dem Ministers can abstain too if they want, under the terms of the Coalition Agreement, going by the first BBC link... but I still think there could be problems for Ministers to abstain, even if allowed, as how can a Government Minister not vote in favour of a Government policy?]

Although Lib Dem Ministers will vote "yes", Lib Dem backbench MPs are free to abstain, as per the Coalition Agreement... plus of course many of them may well actually go one step further and vote "no".

[And then you also have all the other MPs from other parties...it's not like it is only Lib Dem Ministers taking part in the vote!]




In addition to Ministers having to vote the same way, in support of the Government's position, you also have different levels of whipping (& also here): this is where the wishes of the Party on a particular vote are "indirectly" expressed to the Party's MPs. Although some votes are "free votes", due to e.g. being "matters of conscience", other votes will have a particular level of whip (single-line, two-line, three-line) to indicate how important they are to Party policy. And it is of course expected for a loyal MP to be loyal to Party policy...

[frogstamper]

I read today that ex-shadow Home Secretary David Davis is going to vote against the rise in tuition fees, saying it will hamper social mobility.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...tion-fees.html

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by vanman

so tell me what is the point of having a vote in the first place.
vote as i tell you to
or resign

What's the point in having a coalition agreement with agreed policy directions if every vote on policy is a free one?

Any proof that people are being coerced under threat of being forced to resign?

[vanman]

Originally Posted by Hugh

erm, they are Ministers in the Government - collective responsibility.

If they don't want the responsibility that goes with the position, resign.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Any proof that people are being coerced under threat of being forced to resign?

was replying to hugh

[Ignitionnet]

The whole policy has been so diluted it's an entirely pointless exercise anyway. May as well just abandon it.

[Peter_]

If this goes through regardless of them now trying to say if you have not paid it off in 30 years it will be cleared by default as I have said in a previous thread this country will take years to get the same level of students going forward to university education as many will just take a job.

If this happens the will be lack of qualified people in the coming years going out into the workplace and businesses will suffer as a result and many universities will want to further increase their fees to cover the shortfall in places being taken.

They may have a similar scheme in place in other countries but they are well established and known about so no real comparison can be made.

It will take probably 10 years for the university system to recover from this fiasco.

Of course in reality it seems more likely that the governments want us to go back in time when a university education was just for the chosen few and the children of the people who could afford to pay for the fees without blinking an eyelid.

If these politicians feel so strongly about instigating tuition fees why don't they make a stand by paying what they would have been charged for their own degrees, because do not forget all the politicians in parliament never paid these fees.

[Ignitionnet]

Sorry Masque but in case you haven't noticed we have a serious lack of qualified people anyway even with the current system due to so many people coming out of university with BSc / BA after their name and no relevance to the needs of the job market.

It's biased obviously but http://www.factsonfees.com/ may correct some misconceptions - of which there are plenty.

We don't actually have the jobs for the graduates and we have the wrong kinds of graduates at the moment for the jobs we do have. We need engineers, scientists, technologists and we're getting humanities graduates because they were told to go to university. My own employer has a nightmare finding skilled British people to fill jobs.

If this dissuades some from going to university and instead going down more vocational routes that is a good thing. We may be in with a chance of not having to import people wholesale from abroad because British people think being an electrician, plumber or whatever is below them despite those actually being skilled and lucrative professions.

I'm not even going to go into too much depth on how the pressure to go to university has pushed down standards in our institutions, from degree courses right down through A Level and GCSE. Universities doing remedial courses in English and Maths for students who achieved the required A Levels to get there is farcical. Despite a ton of money being thrown into schools we've dropped from 8th in the world for maths to high 20s, our education system as a whole is hosed at the moment and money isn't the answer.

The real scandal of our university and education system is stories like this, this, this, this and worst of all this.

[Pierre]

All Liberal Democrat government ministers will vote to raise the cap on university tuition fees in England, party leader Nick Clegg has said.

As they well should,

If the Lib Dems wilted at this first hurdle they would have proven why they are unelectable as party for government.

Caving in at the first tough decision.

I want a government with conviction.

Their pledge for not raising fees was their election policy, well they didn't win the election. Instead they chose join a coalition, and in by joining that coalition they can't expect to keep all of their pledges.

As for the students.................you want a degree and few years on the lash...pay for it.

[Hugh]

Actually, in my son's case, get your dad to pay for it*.......

(*living expenses only - he has taken out tuition and maintenance (rent) loans, and will owe around £20k when he finishes, just like my daughter).