Reading Liberal Democrats

There is now less than eight months to save a new generation of young people from huge increases in university tuition fees, according to Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Reading East, Cllr Gareth Epps.

Gareth was speaking at a cross-party debate organised by Reading University Liberal Democrats on Thursday (15 October) on campus. The remarks come after the Conservatives suggested last week they will increase tuition fees to £7,000 if they take power at the next general election, which has to be held by next June.

That will see tuition fees for undergraduates more than double. Currently there is a cap of £3,300 in England and Wales. Peter Mandelson has already suggested that Labour will allow universities to charge more than at present if re-elected – though both Labour and the Tories are sheltering behind a proposed review of fees, too scared to push through the changes they want before June.

Only the Liberal Democrats will scrap tuition fees. The party believes university education should be free and everyone who has the ability should be able to go – and not be put off by the cost.

Reading University’s Liberal Democrats – the biggest and most active political group on campus – compiled a “Debtbusters” video which was launched at the debate. Interviews with 100 randomly selected students at the University showed a total debt of £1,525,700.

Gareth says: “I look around Reading and I see and meet people returning from university with no job and a bank balance tens of thousands of pounds in the red. What sort of message is that?

Rob Wilson was personally responsible for ending the Conservatives’ brief commitment to free tuition. The choice is clear: the people of Reading East can vote for a politician who will condemn a generation of youngsters or for the Liberal Democrats who will make education free again, giving young people the best possible start.”

Cllr Prue Bray, Liberal Democrat candidate for Wokingham constituency which covers half of the University campus, says:
“Labour and now the Tories are showing their true colours. They want to saddle them with staggering amounts of debt. One of the Conservative MPs serving Reading University, John Redwood has long been in favour of increasing tuition fees. I have challenged him to make clear his and his party’s views on student finance to his electorate.”

Mark Whiley, President of Reading University Liberal Democrats, commented:-
“Last week we organised a well-attended cross-party debate on Higher Education Funding with both Gareth Epps and Anneliese Dodds. From those attending it is clear there is still only one party that is committed to giving the choice of a University education based upon acumen and skills, rather than the ability to pay.

Labour and the Conservatives continue to support the broken tuition fees system and bow down to pressures from University bodies to increase the tuition cap – seeing students get into deeper debt isn’t considered an issue for them. The Tories left an empty chair for the debate, so shallow is their vision for students.

Selling off the Student Loans Portfolio to private firms or more than doubling the cap to £7,000 will bring young people into even larger sums of debt than the present average of £20,000 per student. You can only change this by voting Liberal Democrat.”

Editor’s Notes:-

Commenting on the news that the University of Reading Council voted on Friday 20 March to close the School of Health and Social Care, Cllr Gareth Epps, Lib Dem Parliamentary Campaigner for Reading East and Group Leader on Reading Borough Council said: “The decision by the University of Reading’s Council to vote to close the School of Health and Social Care in the face of overwhelming local opposition from students, staff and the local community is breathtaking in its arrogance.

Cllr Epps continued “The plight of social care in Reading is already a cause for real concern. Recent inspections of Reading’s Childrens Services and its Adult Community Care Service revealing underlying problems in Reading that need urgent attention – including a chronic shortage of trained social workers.

The closure of this highly regarded School reflects badly on the senior management of University of Reading. They have delivered a calculated snub to staff, students and the local community.”

Cllr Kirsten Bayes, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Education and Childrens’ Services added:

“In the week that Gordon Marshall was revealed to have received an 8% salary increase the closure of the School of Health and Social Care is a false economy. Reading and the Berkshire area as a whole will be poorer as a result as we lose a vital source of highly trained social workers.

Senior management of the University should hang their heads in shame for once again taking a bad decision for the wrong reasons.”

Reading Borough Council’s Chief Executive wrote on behalf of the Council to the Vice Chancellor of Reading University, to express the Council’s concern. The letter followed a Lib Dem motion condemning the closure. The University’s response ran to two lines.

Cllr Daisy Benson, Lib Dem Spokesperson on Health and Community Care said,

“It’s clear the senior management of the University believe they can simply dismiss the concerns of local people. Their response speaks volumes about the University’s attitude towards issues beyond the boundaries of the University campus.”

Editor’s Notes:

Liberal Democrats have condemned the announcement of the closure of Reading University’s Continuing Education public programmes as the result of Government cuts that ‘make a mockery of their so-called commitment to lifelong learning’ – and a slap in the face to workers looking to reskill to fight their way out of unemployment in the recession.

The Labour Government announced last year that they were cutting the £100 million Equivalent or Lower Qualifications (ELQ) funding, which has enabled residents to requalify in new skills. After a review, the University has announced the closure of its public programme to new students from May.

Commenting, Cllr Gareth Epps, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary campaigner for Reading East, said:-

“It is absolutely clear that these cuts in adult education relate directly to the Government’s nonsensical cut to ELQ funding. Labour’s slashing of adult education makes a mockery of their so-called commitment to lifelong learning.

Liberal Democrats are pledged to reverse this irresponsible Labour cut. The worry must be that higher education is to suffer even more as the Government tries to pay its way out of its meaningless VAT cut.”

Cllr Kirsten Bayes, Lib Dem education spokesperson on Reading Borough Council added:-

“These cuts are absurd. They come at the worst possible time for the thousands of local people being made redundant, who are looking to retrain in order to resume their careers.”

Karl Hobley, Mature Students Officer, Reading University Students Union commented:

“This is bad news for mature students, but bad news for the local economy, the region, the University as a whole, Readings widening participation agenda and staff now about to lose their jobs.

Now more than ever we need a government who think long term, who look after students and local people unlike the current lot.”

Editor’s Notes:

• Liberal Democrats at their Spring Conference in Harrogate last weekend (6-8 March) overwhelmingly endorsed new education proposals which included a specific commitment to reverse Labour’s cuts to the ELQ programme.

The news that the University of Reading’s Senate has voted to close to the School of Health and Social Care comes as a shock and flies in the face of the Laming Report.

Commenting on the news that the University of Reading’s Senate has voted to close to the School of Health and Social Care, Cllr Gareth Epps, Parliamentary Campaigner for Reading East said:

“This bizarre decision shows the disarray in Labour over child protection and social care. Today they are reacting to the Laming Report by claiming to want more, better trained social workers. But with the same breath they are turning a blind eye while Reading University closes a vital training facility for these workers – with no clear explanation as to why.

The University has just received a savage funding cut, but is still scheduled to receive over £55m of public money over the coming year. It needs to explain why a school which we are told is profitable is facing the axe. If Labour seriously want to solve the crisis in child protection and recruit more social workers, they have got to fund the training needs. Anything else is no less than dishonest.”

Editor’s Notes:

Background to the vote, including reaction from students can be found here

Reading’s growing Liberal Democrat team travelled to the party’s Spring Conference in Harrogate this weekend (6-8 March) with education top of the agenda.

Liberal Democrats have released figures giving the average primary school class size in Reading as 25.7. Lib Dems will be debating a move to cut class sizes to 15 for all five to seven year olds.

The proposal forms part of a raft of measures to be debated this weekend. Other measures in the Equity and Excellence policy paper include:

• Boosting the funding of the poorest pupils to private school levels through a Pupil Premium, enabling schools to provide more one-to-one tuition and extra catch-up classes where needed;
• Replacing the rigid national curriculim with a slimmed-down minimum curriculum entitlement;
• Radically cutting back national testing and re-investing the savings in improving literacy and numeracy.

Further figures released by the Lib Dems show their proposal for a Pupil Premium would give a boost of over £6 million to Reading children alone.

Reading East Liberal Democrat Parliamentary campaigner Cllr Gareth Epps has also tabled a question calling for a further Parliamentary debate to seek national action on the crisis in safeguarding children – highlighted in the annnual council “league table” results published today.

And Reading Liberal Democrats are tipped to receive a national membership award at the conference as one of the fastest-growing groups of Liberal Democrats in the country. The Reading University group – the most successful recruiter at Fresher’s Fair and the only active political society on campus – is taking a minibus full of members for the Conference, which is expected to see the Liberal Democrats retain their popular commitment to scrap student tuition fees.

Commenting, Patrick Murray, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary campaigner for Reading West, says:

“Across Reading there are too many pupils who lose out under Labour both locally and nationally. We would – unlike Labour – put the poorest children first and make a massive investment in their future.”

Cllr Gareth Epps, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary campaigner for Reading East, says: “Labour has had a dozen years to close the gap between rich and poor children. It has failed. In Reading it has had even longer.

Smaller class sizes and our Pupil Premium will make a real difference to those Reading children let down by Labour. Free university tuition will remove the barrier to poorer children going to university, and free many thousands from obscene levels of debt.

These policies are reasons why Liberal Democrats in Reading are growing at a rate that is starting to win us awards.”

The government is to lend up to £2bn of taxpayers’ money to firms building schools and other public projects under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

Cllr Gareth Epps, Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Reading East commented: “For months Liberal Democrats in Reading have been warning that the Government’s PFI schools programme would need bailing out. Labour remain wedded to a PFI model that is completely wrong. This latest move looks like little more than window-dressing. We have to wonder if this scheme will ever find its way as far as Reading.”

Cllr Kirsten Bayes, Lib Dem spokesperson for Education on Reading Borough Council added: “Reading’s secondary schools have been waiting years for these investments, and once again there are question marks over the financing. This is a deeply flawed scheme, as we have said so from the beginning, yet we have been met with studied Labour complacency. We are very concerned at the impact these problems could have on children’s learning.”

Editor’s Notes –

• Despite recent claims (from a reply given to a written question at the 27 Febuary Council meeting) made by Labour’s Lead Member for Education, Cllr Jon Hartley, that the Building Schools For the Future programme(BSF): “will enable us to transform all state secondary schools within the Borough…and will also provide the opportunity to build in the extra school places that will arise from the current Admissions Review process.”

  Reading Borough Council is still no closer to benifiting from Building Schools For the Future Programme.

• Background to the story can be found here: at the BBC and in the Guardian

Liberal Democrats representing Whitley parents whose children have been overlooked for places at the Madjeski Academy have demanded to know what has happened to secondary school admissions in South Reading – and have made a Freedom of Information request to make public to which areas school places at the Academy have gone to.

Katesgrove Councillor and PPC for Reading East, Cllr Gareth Epps, has asked for information to be made public showing how far away from the new Academy its new admissions are coming from. Redlands Councillors Daisy Benson and Kirsten Bayes have joined Gareth in demanding an urgent meeting to address the problems, including transport issues, that stem from the admissions crisis.

Liberal Democrats are demanding to know why the Council failed to recognise the numbers of pupils from South Reading who were coming up to secondary age, and how they are to be transported to – in many cases – Prospect College in September.

Commenting, Cllr Gareth Epps, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary campaigner for Reading East and councillor for Katesgrove, says:

“Academies have the right to select a proportion of their intake, for better or worse. It’s clear that children living in Whitley have not all got the places they wanted. Local residents have a right to know exactly what has gone on, and where those school places have gone to.

The decision of Reading’s Labour Council not to oppose the disgraceful closure of Ryeish Green has come back to haunt local parents. Unlike Reading’s Labour Council, I opposed that closure. There is an urgent need to revisit that decision.

There appears also to have been a lack of planning in this year’s admissions. The self-congratulatory press release issued by Council spin doctors is an insult to Whitley residents.”

Patrick Murray, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary campaigner for Reading West, says: “Secondary school admissions in Reading are in a mess, largely as a result of centralised Whitehall diktats that ride roughshod over the rights of local parents. It is time for the Council to show some leadership for once, and to take steps to ensure that the rights of our parents are put first. Otherwise the Academy’s gloss will rub off very quickly.”