Politics: MPs rebel over proposals for student fees

A PACKAGE of concessions worth pounds 143m from David Blunkett last night failed to avert a revolt by Labour MPs over the Government's controversial plans to impose tuition fees and scrap maintenance grants.

Thirty-one Labour MPs voted against the Government on the issue, even after the Secretary of State for Education and Employment announced that he was raising the age limit on eligibility from 50 to 55 and keeping the non- repayable allowance for mature students with dependent children.

Mr Blunkett also said the special non-repayable pounds 1,000-a-year grant for single parents would be retained. He also announced that the non-means- tested grant for disabled students would rise to pounds 10,000 to help them meet extra costs of disability.

The rebels included Tony Benn, MP for Chesterfield, Dennis Skinner, MP for Bolsover, and Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington.

Mr Corbyn said: "Either we support students going to university or we don't. If we don't, it is the middle classes who will benefit."

Dennis Canavan Labour MP for Falkirk West and a former teacher, said that without a grant he would have never been able to go to university. His grandfather was forced to leave school aged 12 and work in a coalmine but had later joined the Labour movement, he said.

"Had it not been for the vision of the Labour movement that education was the liberation of the working classes, I would not have been able to study. Now that I am a grandfather, I have the duty to give my grandchildren the same opportunities that I had," he said.

After the vote, Mr Blunkett said in a statement that he was pleased the majority of MPs supported Labour's proposals.

"It was a difficult decision to take, but we believe that they are the fairest way forward both for students and for universities," he said.

As MPs prepared to debate a series of amendments, a petition objecting to the plans signed by students was handed in at 10 Downing Street by celebrities from the music industry, including Paul Weller, and Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers.

Crowds of students from across the country chanted with banners outside the gates to Downing Street as a group of students, led by the comedian Rob Newman and accompanied by the MPs Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone, handed the letter in at the door.

The Teaching and Higher Education Bill, going through its committee stage in the Commons, will introduce tuition fees of up to pounds 1,000 a year and abolish the maintenance grant for students from October.

The proposals will mean that students could graduate from university with debts of up to pounds 10,000, with opponents of the scheme claiming this will deter poorer students from going into the Higher Education system in the first place.

The Government has pledged that by 2002, an extra 500,000 students will have places in further and higher education.

Mr Blunkett announced how access funds helping students in financial difficulties will be increased to pounds 44m and extended to part-time students.

Subsidised loans covering fees and living costs are also to be extended to students aged over 50.

Other elements of yesterday's package included pounds 2m to pay tuition fees of part-time students who lose their jobs and the introduction of pounds 250 hardship loans.

THE LABOUR REBELS

The 31 Labour MPs who voted for the rebel amendment to retain students' maintenance grants were:

Diane Abbott (Hackney N and Stoke Newington), Tony Benn (Chesterfield), Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley), Dennis Canavan (Falkirk W), Jeremy Corbyn (Islington N), Ann Cryer (Keighley), John Cryer (Hornchurch), Lawrence Cunliffe (Leigh), Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow), Denzil Davies (Llanelli), William Etherington (Sunderland N). Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Canning Town), Bernie Grant (Tottenham), Kelvin Hopkins (Luton N), Dr Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak), Terry Lewis (Worsley), Ken Livingstone (Brent E), John McAllion (Dundee E), Alice Mahon (Halifax), Dr John Marek (Wrexham), Jim Marshall (Leicester S), Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby), Kerry Pollard (St Albans), Sir Ray Powell (Ogmore), Allan Rogers (Rhondda), Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney), Alan Simpson (Nottingham S), Dennis Skinner (Bolsover), Llewellyn Smith (Blaneau Gwent), Ian Stewart (Eccles), Audrey Wise (Preston).