Liberal Youth Scotland welcome Cable step away from Tuition fees

July 15, 2010 View Comments

In a major speech today, Business Secretary Dr. Vince Cable announced his support for moving away from the tuition fees system, towards a graduate tax.

Commenting,President of Liberal Youth Scotland Kristian Chapman said: “Liberal Youth Scotland has campaigned extensively on the issue of tuition fees supporting our colleagues south of the border and we will continue to do so until tuition fees are abolished in England, just as the Scottish Liberal Democrats achieved in Holyrood.

Moving to a graduate tax system helps to reduce the financial barriers to young people entering higher education, and will allow more young people to achieve their full potential.

Of course this does not apply to the thousands of Scottish students let down by the SNP’s promise to “dump student debt” that has never materialised, but it will make a difference for English students studying in Scotland, as any increase in tuition fees would have had to mean an increase for these students too.”

Chair of Liberal Youth Martin Shapland said:

“I am pleased to hear of the Business Secretary’s suggestions to move towards a fairer system to pay for higher education.

The devil is in the detail, and I trust that this will be viewed as an interim step towards realising our long term policy and we will be seeking those assurances at Autumn Conference.

While today’s speech will provide little comfort to the millions of students let down by Labour, I am proud that Liberal Democrat Ministers are taking the lead in ending this regressive policy”

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