Tuition fees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be capped, Nick Clegg has revealed this week.

Such a cap would run contrary to the Browne Report, which recommended that universities be free to set their own fees but face a levy on sums above £6,000.

Speaking on the BBC One’s Andrew Marr show, the Deputy Prime Minister said that he felt “uneasy” about the prospect of unlimited fees and that the government was looking at something that would be “more restrained”.

Whilst Clegg stated that the government was still considering its response to the Browne Report, he gave several indicators as to the direction they will take.

Acknowledging the pressing need for a change in higher-education funding, Clegg told the BBC:

“I believe that we will be able to come up with a system that takes some of the benefits of the Browne Report particularly for lower burden or disadvantaged students.

“If you were just to accept the Browne Report as it is, it would actually be a better deal for disadvantaged youngsters going to university than what we presently have under the tuition fee system created by the Labour government. And we’re going to improve upon that, to make it even more progressive.”

Clegg also suggested that the universities themselves were to some extent to blame for their current financial situation.

He added that students were paying for the management failures of many higher-education institutions and emphasised a need to put universities under pressure to “get their act together” in areas in which they are not performing well.

Business Secretary Vince Cable confirmed the plans for a new system involving a tuition fee cap.

Whilst he pressed the fact that the government was still in the process of finalising its plans for the new system, Cable told Sky News, “I don’t think there’s any prospect of having unlimited fees – that simply isn’t going to arise”.

Speaking to Sky News, Cable revealed that Universities Minister David Willetts had already made it clear that he thought the clawback mechanism – by which universities would make a payment with each extra one thousand pounds they wished to charge – was “not attractive”.

Other universities have already expressed their fears that uncapped fees under Lord Browne’s recommendations, would lead to a market system and force poorer students to choose with their wallets, rather than their ambitions.

Cable continued: “We’re not ruling things out. We’re looking at this very carefully, what Browne had to say – but I think that particular approach was one we’re not going to pursue.”
However, the suggestion of a cap has not been welcomed by Britain’s top universities.

Director General of the Russell Group, Wendy Piatt, told the BBC: “Rowing back from Browne and re-imposing a cap would be a real waste of an opportunity to allow our leading universities to provide the high-quality education that their students deserve.

“However, while we acknowledge the need for some contribution to the costs of higher loans, we are concerned about the large size of the levies proposed by Browne.”

Ministers have been keen to stress that no decisions have yet been made.However, speaking to the BBC, Clegg said that the government is “very keen to make sure people know what is happening, within the next couple of weeks or so”.