LABOUR LEADER Ed Miliband pledged to reduce the cap on tuition fees in England from £9000 to £6000 at the Labour Party conference last week. Miliband's proposals were met with criticism from across the political spectrum, with Tories claiming that Labour had made a political U-turn having completely opposed increasing tuition fees last year.

The Labour Party rejected this condemnation. Miliband told the BBC’s Andrew Marr, “I don’t think it is a reversal of policy, I think it is implementing a policy - we voted against the £9,000 tuition fee.”The proposal also came under fire from a number of political organisations.

A thinktank aligned with the Liberal Democrats claimed that such a move would benefit the richest graduates most and would result in fewer loans being written off. 

 Criticism also came from the left. Self proclaimed socialist and Guardian columnist Owen Jones tweeted from the Party conference in Liverpool, “Huge applause for delegate who opposes Labour’s £6,000 student fees pledge and demands free education.”Labour claim to have fully costed their proposals, with extra money coming from scrapping plans to cut corporation tax and charging a higher rate of interest on student loan repayments for those earning over £65,000.

Liam Burns President of the National Union of Students accepted that Labour’s proposals were better than the £9,000 tuition fee cap introduced by the UK Government but insisted that they didn’t go far enough.

He said, “What we need to see now from all parties are bold plans that go even further. Any system of payment based on an identifiable fee will influence the choice of the poorest. We must find a fair balance of funding universities between students, government and employers, always avoiding a ‘sticker price’ on education.”“The issue of how to fund our universities are far from over. This government is trying to lay the consequence of the economic crisis at the feet of a generation that had nothing to do with causing it.”

Gareth Thomas, Labour’s UK higher education spokesperson, defended the proposals, telling The Guardian, “Analysis carried out by the House of Commons Library, using the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ own model, found that our package would benefit the lowest ten per cent of earners the most. They would be 16 per cent better off than under the government’s plans. The highest ten per cent of earners, those with incomes of £65,000 or more every year of their working lives, would be two per cent worse off.”

In spite of the headline-grabbing announcement, Labour made clear that the £6000 tuition fee cap is simply an interim policy. Shadow UK business secretary, John Denham said that the party’s long-term goal was still to introduce a graduate tax in place of fees but it is unclear as to whether this will be a policy in the Labour Party’s next election manifesto. 

 Tuition fees were introduced across the UK in 1998 and were initially set at £1000, with English fees increasing in 2004 and will be increasing again from 2012.