2015 UK General Election Thread

If it goes ahead.

Labour to cut Student Fees to £6,000 if they win.

BBC

Ed Miliband says Labour would cut university tuition fees in England to £6,000 per year from autumn 2016.

He says a Labour government would pay for the fee cut from £9,000 by reducing tax relief on pensions for those earning over £150,000 per year.

This commitment to cut fees would not be negotiable in any post-election coalition deals, Mr Miliband promised.

So.......

There are roughly 1.5 million full-time students (doing a first degree, so not counting post-grads), so we will need to raise £3000 x 1,500,000 per year = £4,500,000,000.

£4.5 billion pounds per year - does he really think there are enough people earning over £150,000 per year in the country, whose reduction in tax relief on their pension contributions could pay for this?

Also, further down in the article, it states

promised that this was a "fully funded policy" and universities would receive an extra £2.7bn per year to replace the fee cut.

Cutting £4.5 billion from the Universities funding, and replacing it with £2.7 billion - excellent idea.......

[Gary L]

Doesn't matter about the sums, Hugh.
everybody's sums won't work out when they get in anyway.

so 1.5 million votes for Labour is good

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Gary L

Doesn't matter about the sums, Hugh.
everybody's sums won't work out when they get in anyway.

so 1.5 million votes for Labour is good

Except they never bother to turn out so they don't count.

Does Ed think he's really found another magic money tree?

Originally Posted by Gary L

Doesn't matter about the sums, Hugh.
everybody's sums won't work out when they get in anyway.

so 1.5 million votes for Labour is good

And that's the problem - as long as it's someone else's money, it doesn't matter....

(but tax money is all our money (those of us who pay taxes, anyway...))

[Gary L]

Nobody cares about taxes.
it's either given away to other countries or being used for something stupid anyway.

as long as we all get something out of it. then a lot of people are not fussed.

People that don't pay much tax don't care about taxes.

[Ignitionnet]

Even ignoring the rest this is an extraordinarily bad idea in the manner it's being funded.

What happened when Labour messed with tax relief on pensions? The money piled into buy to let. Exactly the same will happen here. By making pensions even less attractive it'll push yet more money into the property market.

We already have the second 'hottest' property market in the world, this won't help.

That's ignoring the policy as a whole. A far better policy, in my opinion, would be to spend a couple of hundred million a year educating potential HE students on the particulars of student finance, alongside lowering the interest rate on the loans somewhat, perhaps to match the cost to the government of funding them, so perhaps based on the 10 year gilt rate.

This is a really lame attempt at a bribe for the youth vote... the youth that would largely have voted Labour anyway.

Our politicians are, by and large, truly pathetic.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Hugh

People that don't pay much tax don't care about taxes.

Oh, I pay loads of tax.

and still don't care.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Also, further down in the article, it states Cutting £4.5 billion from the Universities funding, and replacing it with £2.7 billion - excellent idea.......

Of the 1.5 million students, Hugh, some will be international students paying tuition themselves, so it's perhaps not as simple as 1.5 million times £3000.

---------- Post added at 20:16 ---------- Previous post was at 20:16 ----------

Originally Posted by Gary L

Oh, I pay loads of tax.

and still don't care.

I suspect your definition of 'loads' probably differs from Hugh's.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Of the 1.5 million students, Hugh, some will be international students paying tuition themselves, so it's perhaps not as simple as 1.5 million times £3000.

---------- Post added at 20:16 ---------- Previous post was at 20:16 ----------



I suspect your definition of 'loads' probably differs from Hugh's.

According to HESA, there are over 1.8 million under-grads, of which 1.58 million are from the UK - I didn't count the over half a million post-grads.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I suspect your definition of 'loads' probably differs from Hugh's.

Probably. might be millions

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Hugh

According to HESA, there are over 1.8 million under-grads, of which 1.58 million are from the UK - I didn't count the over half a million post-grads.

Thanks for the figures. Even worse than you first thought. So a crap policy in basically every way beyond the superficial bribery angle. Superb work by Labour.

[nashville]

Originally Posted by denphone

Indeed if only politician's thought about what's best for this country rather then their own selfish ends we would be a much better country but sadly all they are interested in is how they can manoeuvre themselves into a better position to get re-elected in five years time.

I agree Den

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

That's ignoring the policy as a whole. A far better policy, in my opinion, would be to spend a couple of hundred million a year educating potential HE students on the particulars of student finance, alongside lowering the interest rate on the loans somewhat, perhaps to match the cost to the government of funding them, so perhaps based on the 10 year gilt rate.

This is a really lame attempt at a bribe for the youth vote... the youth that would largely have voted Labour anyway.

Our politicians are, by and large, truly pathetic.

Like the Conservatives offering more bribes to pensioners I am guessing the idea is to get their 'base' to turn out.

The better policy would have been to introduce a graduate tax that's payable over a certain income post graduation. This is all the student loan is now anyway. The funding is a red-herring in my opinion as the particulars of how the loan is paid back means that many won't ever replay the full loan anyway. You pay 9% on incomes over £21,000 and after 30 years any remaining debt is written off. Most are not projected to pay it all back.

So the Labour policy is rubbish anyway as it works out making little difference to students unless they're paying it off as a lump sum or will have a big enough income post graduation to pay it off within the 30 year time frame.

The amount for the treasury probably balances out but Labour have also increased the maintenance grant so overall this will probably be more expensive. The expansion of the maintenance grant however is a much more morally defensible policy and one which will help students.