Worthy News: NUS 'to fight Oldham by-election'

Sunday 14 November 2010

NUS 'to fight Oldham by-election'

Campaigners say higher tuition fees will give graduates huge loans to pay off

The National Union of Students is to target Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and other Lib Dem MPs as part of a new campaign against tuition fees.

The NUS wants people to sign a pledge not to vote for any MP who backs the proposals to allow universities in England to charge up to £9,000 a year.

It is angry that the Lib Dems promised, pre-election, to oppose such rises.

Mr Clegg's spokesman said the Lib Dem leader was working on making the new system as fair as possible.

He added that Mr Clegg was not surprised by the NUS campaign.

The Lib Dem leader has said he regrets being unable to deliver on the party's tuition fees promise as part of the coalition agreement with the Conservatives.

The NUS campaign will feature a new website with the slogan "It's time MPs kept their promises".

BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said that as part of the campaign, the NUS would be urging a parliamentary recall for MPs who had broken promises on tuition fees.

An NUS spokesman said it was using the spirit of the coalition plan, under which it was proposed to give constituencies the right to call a by-election if an MP was found guilty of wrongdoing.

According to the Observer newspaper, there will be a particular focus on MPs in constituencies with large student populations, such as Mr Clegg, who represents Sheffield Hallam.

Caroline Dowd, Sheffield Hallam University's student union president, told the paper it could not get Mr Clegg "out of our union before the general election".

"He came and spoke about how MPs should not make promises and then break them, about how fees were wrong."

But former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris said the NUS campaign was a "transparent stunt", stressing that manifesto promises could be fulfilled only if a party won a majority.

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