Labour rebellion?

Jeremy Vine interviewed Frank Dobson, Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras and John Grogan, Labour MP for Selby on Sunday 25 January 2004.

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Jeremy Vine presents the Politics Show

Jeremy Vine: Let's hear then from a former minister Frank Dobson and MP for Selby John Grogan.

Let's start with the policy of we can. You're agreed presumably that universities need more money. Where do they get it from if not in this way?

Frank Dobson: Well, I think they should get it from the general taxpayer, for instance, if the Government when it places research contracts with universities paid them the same as it pays to private firms of advisers and such like then the universities would be about a billion pounds better off.

I certainly don't believe it should be done in the way in which the Government is proposing. And the worst thing about it is we promised at the last General Election, a plain promise that we wouldn't do this.

We even said we had passed a law against it, so increasing it above £3,000 isn't going to cut ice with anybody amongst the public.

Jeremy Vine: And is your main objection, John Grogan, the variability of the fees or the whole thing.

John Grogan: Yes, by instinct I'm a Labour loyalist but on this occasion, there are two reasons why I'm against it. One is the Labour manifesto; as Frank says it was a matter of trust and it was very clear. And the second one is the variability, creating a market in higher education.

The cap will rise, it's just a matter of time. I understand the Education Secretary is saying it won't rise until 2010 this morning but last week he said he would bet his mortgage that it wouldn't rise for a decade. So, it seems to be coming forward.

The pressure from universities will be to create a market and people will be going to university not on the basis of ability but on the basis of the course they can afford.

Frank Dobson, Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras

Jeremy Vine: But what is wrong, Frank Dobson, with variable fees when the University of Greenwich has a turn over of £5,000 per student and Imperial College London has a turnover of £40,000 per student so the different courses cost, cost different amounts. That's university life.

Frank Dobson: Different courses do cost different amounts. They cost different amounts when you were at University, they cost different amounts when I was at University, but nobody paid any fees at all then. And the problem with the variable fees is that the self proclaimed elite institutions, want to pop them up to £10,000, £15,000 a year for students.

The ex Polytechnics won't be able to do that and as a result, the gap between the best performing universities and the others will grow, and it, there will be a great growth in social inequality because all the evidence is that er, young people from working class homes are very reluctant to pile up debt compared with other people and they will be faced with a choice.

Do you want to go to one of the very well known places and pay £15,000 a year or do you want to go to one of the others and pay £3,000 a year.

And we all know what's happened in the United States, we know what's happened in Australia. We know what's happened in Canada, it puts off children from the worst of backgrounds.

Jeremy Vine: But in that situation where the ex Polytechnics as you call them are charging less John Grogan, they come more attractive don't they. They are given help essentially in getting students.

John Grogan, Labour MP for Selby

John Grogan: Well the problem is that they, they get most of the students from low income backgrounds so they will have to provide bursaries and so on with the money that they get in and they'll be no better off and the bursaries actually is an interesting question because the, many children from hard working families, the sons and daughters of shall we say a postal worker and a nurse, would get absolutely no help at all from a bursary, they'd have to pay the full fees; so many many people would be worse off through the system.

Jeremy Vine: Let's talk about why you're doing this and why the rebels are rebelling. We heard the reference in David Thompson's report, Frank Dobson to, I think it was embittered ex ministers and so on. Do you have any personal axe to grind here.

Frank Dobson: No, I don't have any personal axe to grind. If you covered what was happening in parliament the week before last, I actually spoke in favour of the government on the housing bill, and I spoke in favour of the government on the human tissue bill. I support the government, but I certainly don't support them on this issue and I made that clear about eighteen months ago.

I think this policy is wrong. I think it's damaging, I think it would lead to greater social inequality in this country. And I didn't join the Labour Party and I didn't become a labour MP to widen social inequalities, and if people say, Oh raising fees wouldn't put people off, have you ever heard of a price increase that didn't put somebody off, and who does it put off most? The people with least money.

Jeremy Vine: Let me show you words from one of your colleagues, Colin Pick.... MP. He says, When I look at the viperous spite of that core of labour MP s who are using this issue to seek to remove Mr Blair, I find I simply can't go in to me lobbies with those, who seem to want collective electoral suicide. John Grogan.

John Grogan: I just think it's not true. I mean the strength of this so-called rebellion is the wide range of people it involves. It doesn't belong to Frank, it doesn't belong to Nick Brown, it doesn't belong to me. It's a broad main stream of Labour MPs.

Jeremy Vine: But some of them want Blair out.

John Grogan: Who say on this, no, I don't, I don't think so. I think Hutton is looking a bit better for Blair now, and I think come the end of this week we've got to resolve this, and then we've all got to unite and bite our tongues a bit more. But that equally applies to the Prime Minister.

That we do not want more divisive issues like this, splitting the parliamentary labour party in the run up to the General Election, and the responsibility is on back benchers, but it's also on him.

Jeremy Vine: Could do him a lot of damage though Frank Dobson couldn't it.

Frank Dobson: Well I don't think it will do him as much electoral damage at the next general election as passing it would. Supposing you're an MP in a marginal seat.

John Grogan: As I am.

Frank Dobson: A labour MP, as John is, and you've got a university in part of that seat as well, and you go and knock on a door and you say, If you vote for me, it's going to cost your children, £9,000 more to go to university, and if you vote for the lying Tories and the lying Lib-Dems, they will say it's going to cost you nothing. Well it's not a good selling line on the door-step is it.

Jeremy Vine: So the rebellion is worth it John Grogan.

John Grogan: I think it is worth it. I mean I hope that the Chief Whip will go to the Prime Minister tomorrow night and say she hasn't got the votes, and then the Prime Minister will begin real negotiations with us about the future of higher education. Because he hasn't done, the government hasn't done yet.

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NB: this transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.

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