Much has been made of the SNP's public plans for a written constitution to be formed in the event that Scotland becomes an independent state following the 2014 referendum. The quest for codification is something that has been, if put unkindly, a perpetual pet project of many a constitutional reformer (myself included). Hardly any states do not have some form of comprehensive document detailing the supreme or basic law of their state: the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Israel (sort of) and Saudi Arabia lack a central constitutional document setting out the bodies of state and what they may lawfully do.
I have long been in favour of the codification of the UK constitution. Though we have relied, historically, on the evolution of conventions and ad hoc solutions to constitutional conflict, it has left us with a patch-work of law, much of which is incoherent and inconsistent. We also have anarchronisms like the Royal Prerogative, which though largely exercised by government ministers these days, provides totally unaccountable powers used for malignant purposes. Even devolution is by its nature constitutionally conservative: minimalist in the way it changes the way the state operates. It is a politically, rather than a legally entrenched settlement, which relies on goodwill rather than institutional rigour to deliver its aims.
Constitutional introspection, though a risk, is also an opportunity. Properly revisiting the way you do governance provides an excellent chance to clean up the loose ends of a constitution, and to start anew in other respects. Iceland recently attempted to crowd-source its constitution. Though I think that's not a particularly good way to do it, some degree of consultation on the specifics, before having a referendum to ratify the constitution, would be a good way to go about it. One of the strongest arguments I think that exists for Scottish independence is that the call for a codified UK constitution has gained very little traction. It is symptomatic of the institutional aversion of the British state to radical all-encompassing reform of the way it governs. In that regard, independence presents an opportunity to have a serious discussion not just about how the central state runs itself, but also what kind of relationship it has with more local forms of power.
This is why I am so disappointed that the SNP have tried to turn the debate about the constitution into something it's not. A constitution is supposed, for the most part: to declare as lawful the existence of the different branches of the state (i.e. executive, legislature and judiciary); the extent and nature of their powers and who may limit them; and to enunciate the fundamental rights of the citizens, which the state is required to guarantee as a pre-requisite for its legitimacy to make sovereign acts on their behalf. A constitution does not exist to restrict the state on matters of broad policy as to how a state should allocate its resources. It is in that respect that talk of constitutionally protected state-funded University tuition and council houses for all is an absurdity.
These things should not be constitutional rights. There is significant debate about how we prioritise state funding, and what public services we expect people to contribute to in other ways. Now of course there is an emerging, particularly solidified consensus within the western developed world that there is a general moral right to education, and to a home, and states recognise broad duties to deliver the goals of these social aims. In education, our states legislate to provide primary education for all who seek it, increasingly secondary education is provided by the state out of general taxation, and there is a recognition that to leave people destitute is something that is not acceptable. But these are not the same kind of rights as the right not to be tortured, or the right to freedom of expression. These are delivered through substantive policies and extensive discussion about how and where to raise taxes and distribute government spending. You get the big discussions about whether benefits and services should be universal, or whether they should be means tested. You get questions in the NHS about whether we should fund a cancer drug or prescriptions. You get questions about whether we should build a new school, amalgamate existing ones and so forth. And yes, we get discussions about whether Universities and student support should be funded out of general taxation, or whether students should make a contribution in-lieu of that support.
Let's just assume for a moment that you buy into the idea that access to University can only be secured through full state funding and that it is an imperative (for various reasons why this is wrong, see elsewhere on this blog). How has this and other provision of "free" education more generally been delivered in society. By a constitutional guarantee? Of course not. It's been delivered by ordinary legislation. In the UK, school education was delivered by the Education Acts in both Scotland and England. Yes, the Republic of Ireland has a constitutional commitment to the provision of primary education. This is a direct importation of the substantive expectaitons of the international agreements many western states have signed up to. But no one is seriously saying that that constitutional provision is any causal link to the delivery of primary education in Ireland.
Why does its state provide secondary education if that isn't in the constitution? Why has virtually every modern western liberal democracy, even that market driven United States of America, provided primary and secondary education through state funding for all those who need it? Because it's about a political consensus about the broad way tax should be spent, and not a fundamental right. That's why. No one seriously suggests that the state is fundamentally illegitimate if it were to start charging for these things, but they might accuse it of being undemocratic and unrepresentative of the views consistently expressed by people at the ballot box. Other states that deliver state-funded university tuition do so without a constitutional amendment. Meanwhile, South Africa has a constitutional right to education. Yet millions remain illiterate and living in absolute poverty. It would be an absurdity if a court were to insist, by judicial diktat, that a state keep a particular school open or keep a particular course at University running and such-like, to the exclusion of being allowed to do other things with its budget to try to provide different kinds of education to other people. To borrow the title of Ted Heath's 1966 Tory Manifesto, "Actions, Not Words". That's how you satisfy socio-economic rights.
But now let's suppose that governments did consider themselves bound by this constitutional law. What does the fact it's a constitutional law, and not an ordinary law mean? It means that it's likely to be more difficult to repeal or to change. Constitutional provisions typically require some sort of special procedure to be overturned, unlike an ordinary Act of Parliament, with the effect that if the consensus changed, or someone who did not share this policy came to government, they would be prevented from implementing their own economic policies by a static spending commitment that they could not alter. What right do the SNP have to entrench their own policies into the very legitimacy of the Scottish state? One of the most strongly resonating messages of the YesScotland campaign is that independence is not just about the SNP. It's hard enough trying to convince Unionists that independence isn't an eternal fiefdom for Alex Salmond without his party making clear that it is their intention to impose his manifesto in the constitution if his party have control over the constitution. If we are to have a clean slate, that means being able to make these decisions as a country for ourselves. Independence is about having more control over our own affairs, not less, and placing unnecessary limits on the policy process makes us have less influence over our own affairs, and actually, less democratically accountable.
Moreover, the SNP policy doesn't even resemble what we understand as a right. It's a policy. It doesn't enshrine and encompass a general principle about education. Free tuition in Scotland applies to a very distinct and carefully defined category of person. It doesn't apply to non-EU international students and (at the moment) rest of UK students. It doesn't apply to students who have to resit years and can't get false-start funding. It doesn't apply to postgraduate students (as every lawyer and teacher will tell you!). It is a very specific commitment to fund the tuition fees of those who are accepted to their first undergraduate degree who are Scottish domiciled or an EU student. It doesn't go to the heart of a fundamental "human" right, because it doesn't apply to all humans. It doesn't encompass education generally because many courses that people get offered to become a part of on merit cannot afford the post-graduate costs. It doesn't encompass all courses, but specific ones approved by the state. If you don't meet their special criteria for what constitutes education, you don't get help. There is no general commitment to continuing access to universities for lifelong learning and personal development. This is a policy, based on finite resources. And that's fine. But its not a fundamental right and it doesn't deliver or guarantee a fundamental principle. Provision of things is different from, for example, the right to free expression. We have the right to speak out and to communicate, but the state doesn't give everyone a phone and a newspaper business. You don't have to be socialists or communists to believe in human rights, because they don't require specific provision of things by the state, except insofar as the state interferes with your rights in other ways.
But actually, what this shows is that the SNP want to make the independence debate about something it's not. It's not about whether you get more or less "free" stuff on independence. It's about taking responsibility for our own decisions. Their policy is hotly contested in respect of what it guarantees. As I've shown elsewhere on this blog, the continuing existence of maintenance loans, which are repaid under the same system as fees anyway, actually means education isn't even a free and accessible endeavour. For those who earn a career average salary of £28.5kpa in today's money, the Scottish student finance system actually requires you to pay more for your education than the English one does. If you believe in the principle of free education, you have to go the whole way and have the guts to return to maintenance grants. That means either finding the revenue to pay for it elsewhere, or cutting the number of people that go to University. The truth is that if your principle is fair access to all, a form of graduate contribution is likely to be the best way to facilitate more education and better education throughout Scotland, even if we are well off and raise more revenue in an independent Scotland than we do in the current UK situation.
You see, socio-economic rights are complex. They're about the art of the achievable and how best to manipulate the productivity of society (largely engendered by market capitalism) to pursue social goals without reaching unintended consequences. This is the same week as news reports show despite free tuition, Scotland consistently performs less well than England at getting kids from disadvantaged backgrounds into its Universities. Independence is about facing up to these questions and trusting the Scottish people to come up with the best, often very nuanced, answers. Political grandstanding about jam and honey is just the inversion of BetterTogether scaremongering about how we'll pay for everything. The best argument for independence is that Scotland can make these decisions for itself in a way that engages its people to a better extent than the United Kingdom can. It's not about the particular policies. So please. Stop talking about them.
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Equal Marriage - Contact your MP
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| My MP John Robertson (Labour) - are you in support of equal marriage? |
Dear John Robertson,
I write to you both in a personal capacity as one of your constituents and in my capacity as President of Glasgow Liberal Youth and Glasgow University Liberal Democrats. As you will be aware, the House of Commons will be voting on a Bill which proposes to extend marriage to same-sex couples, both for civil ceremonies and for certain religious ceremonies (but in the latter case only where that religious denomination is not banned from doing so and where they wish to do so, thus not compelling any unwilling celebrant).
Although this legislation does not apply to Scotland, which is dealing with this matter through its devolved institutions, this is fundamentally a question of civil rights, and the recognition in England of same-sex marriages entered into by people in Scotland and vice versa remains a very important issue, especially given that it is quite common for people to have family both sides of the border.
As I understand it, you have not made your views on this matter public, and groups such as the Coalition for Equal Marriage are unaware of your voting intentions. It is a matter of vital interest for your constituents, many of whom will be an LGBT minority group that we know your intentions on this matter, so that they may maintain confidence that you stand firmly in support of their civil rights. I was hoping, therefore, that you could confirm both to me and publicly, that you intend to support these new measures when they come before a vote in the House of Commons, so that we can make the whole United Kingdom a more free, more fair and more equal society.
I have an additional concern I would like you to raise with the government at Westminster in relation to this legislation, insofar as it affects those seeking to have a change of gender recognised under the Gender Recognition Act 2004. As things stand, if someone seeks to change their gender and they are in a marriage or a civil partnership, that "contract" ceases to be valid, since both marriage and civil partnerships expressly exclude (under law) same-sex and opposite-sex composition respectively. If the opportunity is available to you, please ensure that an amendment is put in place that guarantees that no marriage or civil partnership will become invalid by reason of gender reassignment. In practice this may require that civil partnerships are extended to heterosexual couples, or that civil partnerships are to be abolished and all existing such partnerships converted into civil marriages.
If you could possibly attend to these matters I should be most grateful.
Yours sincerely,
Graeme Cowie
Sunday, 9 December 2012
Scotland's Free Tuition Scam
Yes. That's right. Scotland's student funding model is fundamentally disingenuous. The profoundly political decision to impose no notional or actual levy on the tuition component of University study for Scottish domiciled students is a move which only serves to help those with relatively affluent parents. This might seem anathema to the great body of "progressives" within Scotland, but it's true. And here is why.
Student debt is not real debt in the UK. Under both the Scottish system (where you receive a student loan from the Student Award Agency for Scotland) and the English system (where you receive a student loan from Student Finance England) you are given that support on fundamentally different terms from a normal loan. You repay in proportion to your income, pay nothing for earnings under a certain threshold, and your debt is written-off by SAAS or the SLC after a fixed number of years. The particulars are as follows:
So it's not a real debt in the sense that it will not affect your credit rating (or eligibility from a mortgage). It is recovered from you in a very similar way to income tax, and might be seen as somewhat of a time and contributions limited graduate tax.
What about maintenance debt?
The next thing to look at is how much debt students will actually take on. The common component of debt north and south of the border is maintenance debt, which is the component of maintenance support that is a loan, rather than a grant. The two schemes offer broadly similar levels of support. The only significant differences are that bursary support in Scotland falls away far more sharply (no bursary support for those from households with incomes higher than £35kpa, compared to the English system, which hits that cliff at £42kpa), and that English loan support for those from high-earner families (more than £55kpa) is noticeably lower.
There is also a slight additional weighting for students studying in London, which over three years would add about £6.5k to the maintenance component of the total debt owed to the Student Loans Company. I have included two tables below, the first coming from the SAAS website, and the second is from MoneySavingExpert.com (but is a derivative of a table from the Student Finance England website) which demonstrate the broad equivalence of the two maintenance schemes.
There are several things to take into account at this stage. English Universities typically operate 3-year undergraduate courses, whereas Scottish Universities operate 4-year programmes. The typical maintenance debt arising from being a Scottish student at a Scottish University, therefore, will be higher than for an English domiciled student in an English University. A Scottish student will accrue somewhere between £18k and £22k debt in maintenance, whereas an English student will accrue anything between £10.5k-£16k in maintenance debt.
What about tuition debt?
The next step is to consider the impact of tuition debt. English Universities may charge anything between £6kpa and £9kpa for their courses. This adds between £18k and £27k to a three-year undergraduate debt. For generosity of comparison, we will assume £9k fees across the board, giving the typical debt on graduate in England a total of between £37.5k and £43k. Superficially this seems like a massive difference. Notionally, English domiciled students going to English Universities are in twice as much debt as their Scottish counterparts. But what do they actually pay back?
This is the point when our first table really begins to matter. Those going through the Scottish loans system have to start making contributions back when they are earning considerably less money, and under the new funding arrangements, will only have their remaining debt written off after 35 years, compared to the 30 under the new English scheme.
So what do people actually repay?
For a Scottish graduate, if they earn about £16k as their starting salary, and their average salary over 35 years is about £22k over the course of 35 years (in today's money), they will have to pay back their student loan virtually in its entirety over that period. In other words, they will have paid about £18-22k to the SLC in exchange for their whole university experience. Virtually every student earning over, on average, £22kpa in Scotland will repay their loan in full. The only meaningful difference is that higher earners will pay it off a lot more quickly. By way of example, someone with 35-year salary average of about £35k in today's money will have paid off their student loan within 11-12 years.
For an English graduate that earns the same amount, they will start paying their loan back a lot later (because of the higher repayment threshold) and when they do, their payments will be smaller. This, combined with the 30-year write-off, makes it even less likely that an English graduate will repay their loan in full. If they earned the same amount as the low-earning graduate above (£16k starting salary, £22k career average) they would repay... £2700 in today's money. Yes. That's right. About 13.5% of what the Scottish graduate pays. The amount that is actually repaid then continues to rise the more successful the graduate is.
The tipping point (i.e. the point at which the two schemes lead to you actually paying back roughly the same amount) is when someone has 30-35 year average earnings of about £28500 in today's money, or roughly the equivalent of someone who gets a career starting salary of £22k. From that point onwards, it is absolutely true to say that English students at English Universities will be paying more. The peak cost under the English system will fall on earners with career average salaries at around £50k in today's prices, and they will pay about £75-80k towards the cost of their education if they took a £9kpa course.
But what can we learn from this?
What does and doesn't matter?
There are a number of important lessons we can draw from this comparison. Firstly, it is virtually irrelevant for modest graduate earners (those earning up to £28500) whether they are or are not charged tuition fees. The fact that maintenance loans and tuitions fees are combined under the same loan for repayment purposes means that one type of debt is indistinguishable from the other.
It also means that the terms of repayment matter a lot for all income brackets. The level of maintenance support north and south of the border is broadly equivalent in terms of the up-front support it gives to students to live-off. It is certainly the case that the schemes are not identical, and that both countries (but especially England) could show greater regard to the difference in living costs from city to city. What we see though, is that maintenance delivery has a much bigger impact on what Scottish students have to pay back than it does for English students.
This matters from the perspective of allocation of resources as well, however. In both absolute and relative terms, Scotland's system demands a greater direct contribution from graduates earning typical graduate salaries. This can be attributed almost exclusively to the repayment threshold that is applied, but also to some extent to the 35-year write-off period (for extremely low-earners). Further, we should consider what kind of student is most likely to take out a maintenance loan in the first place.
Who is most affected by debt attaching to maintenance rather than fees?
Students more likely to take out maintenance loans are those who a) come from less affluent families b) are living away from home and c) do not have an alternative source of revenue. Though it is certainly true that the loan component of the maintenance payment is lower for lower earners (under both systems) it is only marginally so. In practice, this means that the children of the affluent in Scotland are less likely to need or seek support from the loans system in the first place, and in consequence will be called upon to contribute absolutely nothing towards its upkeep over and above the general taxation burden they face, which is identical north and south of the border.
Now clearly it's a bit of a false economy even if these affluent students continue to take out these loans. One classic strategy of students was to take out the maximum (interest-free) loan and to place it in a high-interest savings account before repaying in full without penalty. That scheme is broadly circumvented nowadays by very low savings rates and in England by the closer-to-commercial interest rates on the loan amount, but what they're paying back is broadly what they took in terms of maintenance.
Redistribution: when does more of it happen?
Self-styled progressives, left-wingers, social liberals etc. should ask themselves whether such a system really improves access and tackles inequality to a meaningful extent. The Scottish student support system, particularly now that the SNP have reduced the bursary component, is less redistributive than the English student support system. By charging fees, you do two things. Firstly, you make it far more likely that the children of the affluent will tie themselves into the contribution system. They are more likely to take the calculated gamble that their earnings post graduation will not be high enough to make it worth their while having their parents pay it up-front. If they are, by the time they notice, they'll be sufficiently affluent as it will make little material difference to them. Secondly, by charging above RPI inflation for higher earners, you facilitate a far greater redistributive effect, lowering the burden for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and low graduate earners. This has the effect of making the disadvantaged not simply better-off in terms of the education you provide them, but also in raw cash-terms as well, given their maintenance benefit far exceeds what they pay back in terms of loans.
What are our real options to increase access to University?
The real lesson in this, however, is that access to education is not determined by the notional price-tag of that education, but by the manner in which that burden is levied upon society. For as long as we tolerate part of student maintenance taking the form of a loan, we have no principled objection to university tuition fees. There is often a call for a return to grants-only systems, but we have to bear in mind that they were possible back in an era when 5-10% of school-leavers went to University. Now that figure is closer to 40-45%. If we are serious about removing all loan components from tertiary education, we have to explain, in explicit economic terms, how we are going to pay for the maintenance of that extra 30-40% of school-leavers. This system also has no regard to the relative lack of part-time and post-graduate state support in Scotland compared to England, funded out of fees. Post-graduate degrees, in particular, receive very little (if any) state loan support, meaning that they are only accessible to those who are affluent or can find an external source of support. Our real options are to increase taxation yield (successfully) or to reallocate considerable expenditure from elsewhere.
Our choice is that, or that we admit considerably fewer students to University. Alas that probably is not a silver bullet either. Unlike 30-40 years ago, we no longer have the option available to us to allow a large number of school-leavers to go straight into apprenticeships or work. As things stand youth unemployment is considerably higher than unemployment as a whole. The demand is increasingly for skilled workers, and that means preserving more of our Further Education Colleges for those who cannot or do not want to entertain an academic or professional career.
Short of a revolutionary and mass-scale redistribution of wealth of the like we have never seen, the most progressive option available to us seems to be to ask successful University graduates to contribute more over and above our progressive tax system. It is in this context that free undergraduate tuition for Scots domiciles is a con. Not only does it not actually make University cheaper for our students, but it also makes it less accessible to the disadvantaged than could be achieved with a tuition-based funding model.
Student debt is not real debt in the UK. Under both the Scottish system (where you receive a student loan from the Student Award Agency for Scotland) and the English system (where you receive a student loan from Student Finance England) you are given that support on fundamentally different terms from a normal loan. You repay in proportion to your income, pay nothing for earnings under a certain threshold, and your debt is written-off by SAAS or the SLC after a fixed number of years. The particulars are as follows:
So it's not a real debt in the sense that it will not affect your credit rating (or eligibility from a mortgage). It is recovered from you in a very similar way to income tax, and might be seen as somewhat of a time and contributions limited graduate tax.
What about maintenance debt?
The next thing to look at is how much debt students will actually take on. The common component of debt north and south of the border is maintenance debt, which is the component of maintenance support that is a loan, rather than a grant. The two schemes offer broadly similar levels of support. The only significant differences are that bursary support in Scotland falls away far more sharply (no bursary support for those from households with incomes higher than £35kpa, compared to the English system, which hits that cliff at £42kpa), and that English loan support for those from high-earner families (more than £55kpa) is noticeably lower.
There is also a slight additional weighting for students studying in London, which over three years would add about £6.5k to the maintenance component of the total debt owed to the Student Loans Company. I have included two tables below, the first coming from the SAAS website, and the second is from MoneySavingExpert.com (but is a derivative of a table from the Student Finance England website) which demonstrate the broad equivalence of the two maintenance schemes.
There are several things to take into account at this stage. English Universities typically operate 3-year undergraduate courses, whereas Scottish Universities operate 4-year programmes. The typical maintenance debt arising from being a Scottish student at a Scottish University, therefore, will be higher than for an English domiciled student in an English University. A Scottish student will accrue somewhere between £18k and £22k debt in maintenance, whereas an English student will accrue anything between £10.5k-£16k in maintenance debt.
What about tuition debt?
The next step is to consider the impact of tuition debt. English Universities may charge anything between £6kpa and £9kpa for their courses. This adds between £18k and £27k to a three-year undergraduate debt. For generosity of comparison, we will assume £9k fees across the board, giving the typical debt on graduate in England a total of between £37.5k and £43k. Superficially this seems like a massive difference. Notionally, English domiciled students going to English Universities are in twice as much debt as their Scottish counterparts. But what do they actually pay back?
This is the point when our first table really begins to matter. Those going through the Scottish loans system have to start making contributions back when they are earning considerably less money, and under the new funding arrangements, will only have their remaining debt written off after 35 years, compared to the 30 under the new English scheme.
So what do people actually repay?
For a Scottish graduate, if they earn about £16k as their starting salary, and their average salary over 35 years is about £22k over the course of 35 years (in today's money), they will have to pay back their student loan virtually in its entirety over that period. In other words, they will have paid about £18-22k to the SLC in exchange for their whole university experience. Virtually every student earning over, on average, £22kpa in Scotland will repay their loan in full. The only meaningful difference is that higher earners will pay it off a lot more quickly. By way of example, someone with 35-year salary average of about £35k in today's money will have paid off their student loan within 11-12 years.
For an English graduate that earns the same amount, they will start paying their loan back a lot later (because of the higher repayment threshold) and when they do, their payments will be smaller. This, combined with the 30-year write-off, makes it even less likely that an English graduate will repay their loan in full. If they earned the same amount as the low-earning graduate above (£16k starting salary, £22k career average) they would repay... £2700 in today's money. Yes. That's right. About 13.5% of what the Scottish graduate pays. The amount that is actually repaid then continues to rise the more successful the graduate is.
The tipping point (i.e. the point at which the two schemes lead to you actually paying back roughly the same amount) is when someone has 30-35 year average earnings of about £28500 in today's money, or roughly the equivalent of someone who gets a career starting salary of £22k. From that point onwards, it is absolutely true to say that English students at English Universities will be paying more. The peak cost under the English system will fall on earners with career average salaries at around £50k in today's prices, and they will pay about £75-80k towards the cost of their education if they took a £9kpa course.
But what can we learn from this?
What does and doesn't matter?
There are a number of important lessons we can draw from this comparison. Firstly, it is virtually irrelevant for modest graduate earners (those earning up to £28500) whether they are or are not charged tuition fees. The fact that maintenance loans and tuitions fees are combined under the same loan for repayment purposes means that one type of debt is indistinguishable from the other.
It also means that the terms of repayment matter a lot for all income brackets. The level of maintenance support north and south of the border is broadly equivalent in terms of the up-front support it gives to students to live-off. It is certainly the case that the schemes are not identical, and that both countries (but especially England) could show greater regard to the difference in living costs from city to city. What we see though, is that maintenance delivery has a much bigger impact on what Scottish students have to pay back than it does for English students.
This matters from the perspective of allocation of resources as well, however. In both absolute and relative terms, Scotland's system demands a greater direct contribution from graduates earning typical graduate salaries. This can be attributed almost exclusively to the repayment threshold that is applied, but also to some extent to the 35-year write-off period (for extremely low-earners). Further, we should consider what kind of student is most likely to take out a maintenance loan in the first place.
Who is most affected by debt attaching to maintenance rather than fees?
Students more likely to take out maintenance loans are those who a) come from less affluent families b) are living away from home and c) do not have an alternative source of revenue. Though it is certainly true that the loan component of the maintenance payment is lower for lower earners (under both systems) it is only marginally so. In practice, this means that the children of the affluent in Scotland are less likely to need or seek support from the loans system in the first place, and in consequence will be called upon to contribute absolutely nothing towards its upkeep over and above the general taxation burden they face, which is identical north and south of the border.
Now clearly it's a bit of a false economy even if these affluent students continue to take out these loans. One classic strategy of students was to take out the maximum (interest-free) loan and to place it in a high-interest savings account before repaying in full without penalty. That scheme is broadly circumvented nowadays by very low savings rates and in England by the closer-to-commercial interest rates on the loan amount, but what they're paying back is broadly what they took in terms of maintenance.
Redistribution: when does more of it happen?
Self-styled progressives, left-wingers, social liberals etc. should ask themselves whether such a system really improves access and tackles inequality to a meaningful extent. The Scottish student support system, particularly now that the SNP have reduced the bursary component, is less redistributive than the English student support system. By charging fees, you do two things. Firstly, you make it far more likely that the children of the affluent will tie themselves into the contribution system. They are more likely to take the calculated gamble that their earnings post graduation will not be high enough to make it worth their while having their parents pay it up-front. If they are, by the time they notice, they'll be sufficiently affluent as it will make little material difference to them. Secondly, by charging above RPI inflation for higher earners, you facilitate a far greater redistributive effect, lowering the burden for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and low graduate earners. This has the effect of making the disadvantaged not simply better-off in terms of the education you provide them, but also in raw cash-terms as well, given their maintenance benefit far exceeds what they pay back in terms of loans.
What are our real options to increase access to University?
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| University of Glasgow |
Our choice is that, or that we admit considerably fewer students to University. Alas that probably is not a silver bullet either. Unlike 30-40 years ago, we no longer have the option available to us to allow a large number of school-leavers to go straight into apprenticeships or work. As things stand youth unemployment is considerably higher than unemployment as a whole. The demand is increasingly for skilled workers, and that means preserving more of our Further Education Colleges for those who cannot or do not want to entertain an academic or professional career.
Short of a revolutionary and mass-scale redistribution of wealth of the like we have never seen, the most progressive option available to us seems to be to ask successful University graduates to contribute more over and above our progressive tax system. It is in this context that free undergraduate tuition for Scots domiciles is a con. Not only does it not actually make University cheaper for our students, but it also makes it less accessible to the disadvantaged than could be achieved with a tuition-based funding model.
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Speech to Scottish Lib Dem Conference
"When we commissioned this report last Autumn Conference, I warned against two things.
Firstly, I feared it would leave us in a state of limbo on the constitutional question, stating unequivocally that the party opposes independence, but not doing enough, while we waited for the report, to demonstrate to the Scottish people we were not content with the status quo. I think we must acknowledge that in the past 12 months we have spent rather too much time 'doing down' the SNP, much though there is to criticise, and not enough distinguishing our attitude from that of Labour and the Tories.
My second concern was that the Commission would remain behind the curve of Scottish public opinion, failing to build enough on the work of Lord Steel some six years ago. On that point, I am pleasantly surprised. Ming has prepared an ambitious cocktail of new law-making and financial powers, which would give Scotland the kind of autonomy enjoyed by other sub-state units across Europe. Though this 'fiscal federalism' is not my ideal preference, it represents far more substantial progress than the Calman Commission.
Few fair-minded Scots would reject these powers in the event of a 'No' vote in 2014. Nevertheless, I feel we should keep an open mind to going further. Full fiscal autonomy would give Scotland the tools that it needs to secure a more liberal and socially just society. Does it really make sense, for example, for Holyrood to be responsible for health issues like addiction, but not control the drugs laws or alcohol and tobacco taxes in Scotland? Where is the logic in retaining welfare matters, like housing benefit, when the Scottish Government is responsible for the provision of social housing?
In a similar vein, I strongly support the review of the Barnett Formula. For too long the ability to deliver a federal relationship in the UK has been constrained by the structural flaws of ad hoc devolution.
To give proper effect to that, of course, we need a codified constitution. This presents an opportunity for us to commit the UK not just to decentralisation, but to human rights and social justice too. We need our own equivalent of the fundamental freedoms protected in perpetuity in the US constitution, rather than leave such important things to the whims of back-bench Conservatives who would repeal the Human Rights Act. It cannot be right that we give our UK Parliament unlimited power to trample on our liberties.
This is a once in a generation opportunity to write a constitution, whether for a federal UK or an independent Scotland. It is a chance to restate the values of our nation. To make sure this happens, Lib Dems must be prepared to work with all parties, including the SNP. For this question, as Donald Dewar put it, 'is about more than our politics and our laws. This is about who we are and how we carry ourselves'.
I support this motion, and urge you to do too."
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Conference is about Democracy - let Yes Scotland in
The Liberal Democrat tradition is a proud one when it comes to democracy. We don't just value it as a system in the wider political arena, whether in response to Scotland's democratic deficit in the 1980s and 90s, or to reform of the Westminster institutions and electoral systems. We do genuine internal party democracy too. Just look back at our week in Brighton, where journalists and commentators alike continue to be perplexed by just how intensely relaxed our leadership are about us openly discussing things from assisted death, to the government's troubled civil liberties agenda and even the economy. We are a party who believe that disagreement, debate and deliberation creates a more open politics generally produces better outcomes.
That's why it annoyed and saddened me to see an article in yesterday's Herald online edition (and presumably the main paper too) reporting a story that the Scottish Lib Dems had rejected an application from Yes Scotland to have a stall at our conference, on the same commercial terms as other organisations who frequently pitch up at Dunfermline once a year. The public statement from the Lib Dems was to the effect that as a party we don't support independence, and the article in question had overtures that we had suggested insufficient spaces were available to accommodate them.
At the basic level, I doubt there was ever a serious issue with capacity. Having been at the Vine Centre for last year's Autumn conference, I see no reason why a solitary additional stall could not be worked into a floor plan. The reason, therefore, seems to be a question of political messaging.
I can understand a political party wanting to be able to push its own policy platform. We have the Home Rule Commission reporting to Scottish conference, and Scottish Lib Dem HQ will no doubt be keen to push that, firstly as an alternative to independence, but secondly to differentiate us from those on the No side who have little to offer Scotland other than more of the status quo. But rejecting Yes Scotland's approach to be involved in our internal debate (and their money!) strikes me as evasive towards the democratic principle and not a particularly liberal way of engaging with the debate either.
Even if this perception that Yes Scotland was trying to trip us up were true, they are more likely to get favourable press attention complaining of a shut-out just outside the Vine Centre with a handful of activists than they are with a pretty mundane stall at a party conference where, if I'm honest, most attendees will be voting No no matter what. In truth if the Yes Scotland campaign wanted to distract the press from the Home Rule Commission, not giving them a formal platform inside the centre, with clear rules and terms of use to abide by, actually creates the media story in the first place. The negative implications of Yes Scotland pulling off a stunt having been given the opportunity to turn up at Conference would fall squarely on them, as they could not accuse us of shutting them out from debate. The media attention such a stunt would attract would lead to more cameras on Willie Rennie, and more opportunity to publicise the Home Rule Commission and show him and the party to be the standard bearers of a popular middle-ground.
If we wanted to give the Home Rule Commission a bit of space to get its own media attention, we could have said to Yes Scotland that we'd be happy to accommodate them at our Spring Conference instead, perhaps even involving them in a fringe event on whether independence was better or worse than home rule or a federal settlement. We could have shown ourselves to be an open and inclusive party not afraid to fight our case, but equally not combative for the sake of it.
That is why I signed a letter to the Herald newspaper urging the Scottish Liberal Democrats to reverse this decision. This was not about trying to undermine the party or the leadership, but about asserting our liberal values of speaking up when we feel people are being shut out of the democratic process of debate and deliberation. Not all of us who signed the letter are even in favour of Scottish independence, and among those of us who are, some are a lot more reluctantly in favour than others. Some of us are in favour of the Westminster coalition, and others are against. This is principally about changing a mindset within the Scottish Party that everything coming from the Yes Campaign or the SNP is a trap. It's harmful towards attempts to develop our own distinctive policies and actually it's harmful for getting those ideas out into the public domain.
We are not rebels. We are not grumbling for the sake of it. We want strong liberal and democratic voices in Scotland. We don't think the other parties are capable of offering it. We don't want the Lib Dems to go the same way.
 |
| Herald article (online, retrieved 3rd October 2012) |
That's why it annoyed and saddened me to see an article in yesterday's Herald online edition (and presumably the main paper too) reporting a story that the Scottish Lib Dems had rejected an application from Yes Scotland to have a stall at our conference, on the same commercial terms as other organisations who frequently pitch up at Dunfermline once a year. The public statement from the Lib Dems was to the effect that as a party we don't support independence, and the article in question had overtures that we had suggested insufficient spaces were available to accommodate them.
At the basic level, I doubt there was ever a serious issue with capacity. Having been at the Vine Centre for last year's Autumn conference, I see no reason why a solitary additional stall could not be worked into a floor plan. The reason, therefore, seems to be a question of political messaging.
I can understand a political party wanting to be able to push its own policy platform. We have the Home Rule Commission reporting to Scottish conference, and Scottish Lib Dem HQ will no doubt be keen to push that, firstly as an alternative to independence, but secondly to differentiate us from those on the No side who have little to offer Scotland other than more of the status quo. But rejecting Yes Scotland's approach to be involved in our internal debate (and their money!) strikes me as evasive towards the democratic principle and not a particularly liberal way of engaging with the debate either.
Even if this perception that Yes Scotland was trying to trip us up were true, they are more likely to get favourable press attention complaining of a shut-out just outside the Vine Centre with a handful of activists than they are with a pretty mundane stall at a party conference where, if I'm honest, most attendees will be voting No no matter what. In truth if the Yes Scotland campaign wanted to distract the press from the Home Rule Commission, not giving them a formal platform inside the centre, with clear rules and terms of use to abide by, actually creates the media story in the first place. The negative implications of Yes Scotland pulling off a stunt having been given the opportunity to turn up at Conference would fall squarely on them, as they could not accuse us of shutting them out from debate. The media attention such a stunt would attract would lead to more cameras on Willie Rennie, and more opportunity to publicise the Home Rule Commission and show him and the party to be the standard bearers of a popular middle-ground.
If we wanted to give the Home Rule Commission a bit of space to get its own media attention, we could have said to Yes Scotland that we'd be happy to accommodate them at our Spring Conference instead, perhaps even involving them in a fringe event on whether independence was better or worse than home rule or a federal settlement. We could have shown ourselves to be an open and inclusive party not afraid to fight our case, but equally not combative for the sake of it.
That is why I signed a letter to the Herald newspaper urging the Scottish Liberal Democrats to reverse this decision. This was not about trying to undermine the party or the leadership, but about asserting our liberal values of speaking up when we feel people are being shut out of the democratic process of debate and deliberation. Not all of us who signed the letter are even in favour of Scottish independence, and among those of us who are, some are a lot more reluctantly in favour than others. Some of us are in favour of the Westminster coalition, and others are against. This is principally about changing a mindset within the Scottish Party that everything coming from the Yes Campaign or the SNP is a trap. It's harmful towards attempts to develop our own distinctive policies and actually it's harmful for getting those ideas out into the public domain.
We are not rebels. We are not grumbling for the sake of it. We want strong liberal and democratic voices in Scotland. We don't think the other parties are capable of offering it. We don't want the Lib Dems to go the same way.
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