Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at the backlash following my announcement that Welsh –domiciled students would not have to find the additional money for higher fees charged in our higher education institutions in Wales – or those in England. I have worked in the BBC in London after all. Metropolitan provincialism defines the culture of most of the national newspapers and indeed, the television newsrooms. Senior figures in the BBC have told me that our announcement in Cardiff suddenly brought home to the BBC network newsroom what devolution actually meant.
And yet – the ferocity of response from some of the newspapers has been revealing. The use of the word ‘apartheid’ in both the Mail and Telegraph to define Welsh policies on the day after our announcement suggested either collusion or a collective narrowness of vision. Perhaps both.
I want to see English students continuing to come to Wales to study. However, I am responsible for the student support arrangements for students domiciled in Wales. The Scottish government is responsible for students domiciled in Scotland. Northern Ireland Ministers in their Assembly for students domiciled in Northern Ireland. And – wait for it – Vince Cable and David Willetts in the UK coalition government for students domiciled in England. They are welcome to follow our example in Wales. We are making a policy choice. So are they.
So the Daily Mail, which tells us it ‘has reservations about the plan to treble the cap on fees’, should direct its fire at the UK Coalition Government, rather than wittering on about Wales ‘exempting its nationals from Whitehall’s increases in tuition fees’. The UK Coalition government has chosen to levy in England the highest tuition fees in the world outside the United States. Facing a cost of between £70-110 million to support Welsh students attending English universities, the One Wales Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition government has found a route which protects our students and at the same time gives our own higher education institutions a fighting chance of holding their own against universities east of the border.
Let there be no mistake – I would prefer not to have to raise fees in Welsh institutions. I would prefer to leave them at about the current level. But I am not prepared, and nor are my Cabinet colleagues, to see a one-way transfer from the Welsh Assembly Government budget into the English higher education system, which is what would happen if we did not raise fees in Wales but supported Welsh students who wanted to study in England to do so. Fees are rising in England, not as was originally intended, to provide additional income for higher education institutions in England, but instead to plug the 80% cut in the university teaching grant in England.
Of course, the suggestion that under EU laws, EU students could benefit, was guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of the Daily Mail. But then, in most EU countries, tuition fees are far, far lower than in the UK. So why they would be racing to study here is an interesting question. This is precisely why I doubt the long-term sustainability of the UK coalition government’s policy. It is the policies made in England which are out of kilter with those of most of Europe. In any case, Welsh and English students studying in EU countries will enjoy the same fee regimes as the inhabitants of those countries. Remember all the stories in the summer about students from the UK, unable to get places at UK institutions, studying in Maastricht or elsewhere with lower fees than at home?
Welsh graduates will, of course, pay a contribution and will be repaying the loans that they require to pay the fees that will be levied on them. But they will be at a more affordable rate, not at the full-cost or near full-cost level others will face.
By the way, though you wouldn’t think it, we also pay taxes in Wales. We do not live off English subsidies. Taxes collected in Wales exceed significantly the budget of the National Assembly, as the independent commission on the financing of Wales chaired by Gerry Holtham found.
This is a policy choice we are making. We are continuing to provide more generous support for university teaching than in England. We will not be saying that there are academic subjects not worthy of subsidy. We do not believe that the market will protect culture, history and language and we will intervene to protect these. We will plan the development of our higher education system in Wales. If that puts us in the European mainstream, while England swims in a different direction, so be it.
