Politics: Tory Power Grab has Already Begun

First Theresa May’s Government brushed off the fears of MPs that its Brexit “Great Repeal Bill” legislation was giving Ministers too much power in the process of transferring EU regulations into British legislation. Now the Conservatives have made a separate power grab over the right to raise university tuition fees without a House of Commons vote.

Labour MPs tried earlier this year to challenge the Government’s proposal to raise tuition fees from £9,000 to £9,250 this year and £9500 next year but the expected debate was delayed by the Prime Minister’s snap general election. That took the issue past a 40-day deadline for forcing changes to the hike in fees before the relevant regulations came into force. That meant that last week’s vote in Labour’s favour to revoke the tuition fee changes was not binding, leaving furious Labour MPs contemplating a legal challenge or a bid to stop the fee hike in the House of Lords.

Henry VIII Turns Charles I

Angela Rayner, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, said the so-called “Henry VIII” executive powers granted by the Great Repeal Bill had already been exceeded by the Government’s handling of tuition fees, which she said was reminiscent of Charles I, who inspired the English Civil War.

“Just days ago the Government told us that we could trust them with the powers in the Brexit Bill because ministers could not change the law without parliament agreeing to it. Yet today they are changing the law despite the House of Commons voting against it,” she said after the debate.

“In the space of a week the Tories have gone from Henry VIII to Charles I, simply ignoring elected MPs and ruling by decree. If they want to avoid a constitutional crisis they must accept this vote and immediately confirm that they will abandon this rise in tuition fees.”

Commentators believe the decision to treat the vote as non-binding was because the Conservatives had lost their majority and are being propped in government up by the Democratic Unionist Party, which opposes the tuition fee rise. The Conservatives claimed that Labour could have initiated legislation in the House of Lords to challenge the fee hike and had not done so. “They won’t even trust their own MPs to back their latest hike in student fees, so they’re trying to stop us voting on it at all,” claimed Rayner.

Dodging a Vote

The DUP backed Labour and other opposition parties in the non-binding House of Commons vote, leaving the Government in the minority. To avoid an embarrassing head count the Tories accepted defeat without a formal ballot, adopting the same tactic on a subsequent Labour motion calling for higher pay for NHS staff, which was also backed by the DUP.

Meanwhile the Department for Education has continued to insist that the repayment system for tuition fees is fair. Students repay their fees as a fraction of their income once they are earning more than £21,000. Labour claims that threshold was meant to rise with wages but it hasn’t.

The debt is also cancelled after 30 years, meaning that only the highest earners are likely to pay back their full debt. Student leaders say that is little comfort, especially after the recent hike in student loan interest rates to 6.1%, which accumulates from the first day of enrolment in a student’s first year.

by Stewart Vickers

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