The rightful hiatus over student fees has rather obscured some startling detail in last weeks report from the Coalition's very own Office of Budget Responsibility, the OBR.
Thanks to the New Statesman for highlighting the following:
- economic growth will be higher than forecast this year (at 1.8% rather than 1.2%). Impressive in the first 12 months after a savage recession. Since there is an accepted lag between policy and effect, this is mostly due to Alistair Darling's fiscal stimulus
- growth next year and the year after has been revised down to 2.1% and 2.6% respectively. Slower growth predicted as a result of Osborne economics.....
- whilst there is predicted drop in public sector job cuts from 490,000 to 330,000 this is based on a rapidly expanding private sector creating nearly £2m jobs. Douglas Alexander has noted that in the last post recession period (1993-1996), the private sector struggled to create just 300,000 jobs
- by 2015, we are predicted to have a budget SURPLUS of £6bn. Good housekeeping, but why on earth is there a need, therefore, to cut £7bn from university funding over the same period? A cut that is the direct cause of the need to raise tuition fees. I say again that its about idealogy not economics.
Britain already spends less as a percentage of its GDP on higher education than the rest of Europe (0.7% compared to 1.2% in France, 1.4% in Sweden, 0.9% in Germany) so this has to be about a deliberate policy to shift higher education funding from the state to the individual. They are creating a market in education, along the lines of the US model. Equal access for all will suffer as a result.
All useful facts to have at your fingertips when (a) there is no alternative or (b) its all Labour's fault are being advanced as the reason for every coalition policy......
Conspiracy theorists will say letting the LibDems cop the flack for a week is rather a good diversionary tactic from some pretty bad economic news. Another answer to what the LibDems are for!
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