Greens now the only political party fighting for free education

08 DECEMBER 2010

The Green Party is emerging as the only one of the main UK-wide political parties which has consistently supported the abolition of tuition fees.

Earlier this week, Green Party Leader and Brighton Pavilion MP, Caroline Lucas, co-sponsored an Early Day Motion (EDM 1130) with Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland, calling for the vote on raising tuition fees to be halted, noting that "the government has failed to convince many people that its proposals will be fair and sustainable" (1). She is co-sponsoring an amendment to the Government's Tuition Fees Motion to the same effect.

Scrapping EMA is "hugely destructive, and completely unnecessary", says party leader

The Green Party Leader, who will be speaking at the rally outside Parliament on Thursday, said:

"The government's plans to saddle young people with huge debts, and to scrap the Educational Maintenance Allowance which has been so successful in enabling more young people to stay on in education, are hugely destructive, and completely unnecessary.

"There are alternative ways to fund education, including a more progressive taxation system. For example, a business education tax levied on the top 4% of UK companies, as proposed by the University and Colleges Union (UCU)(2), would require business to pay its fair share for the substantial benefits it receives from higher education.

"Raising corporation tax to the G7 average would generate enough annually to abolish tuition fees, and increase UK investment in higher education to the average for other comparable countries, while leaving 96% of companies in the UK unaffected by the change, and still leaving the UK's main corporation tax below that of France, Japan and the US."

Caroline Lucas continued:

"The Green Party believes that education is absolutely vital for people to be able to participate fully in society, and as such, access to learning should be as democratic as possible, with no person made to feel excluded by prohibitively high costs."

Young Greens' concern over generation gap

Young Greens co-chair Sam Coates said:

"The amount of student debt this rise will bring, along with the lack of affordable housing and high youth unemployment, is driving the gap between our generation and previous ones even wider."

Notes:

1. Research published by university think-tank million+ and London Economics suggests that the majority of students (60-65%) will be worse-off under the new proposals, and that social mobility and participation will also be adversely affected, "Fair, progressive and good value?", (30 November 2010),http://www.millionplus.ac.uk/file_download/184/Fair

2. "In place of fees: time for a Business Education Tax?" (10 March 2010),http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/2/3/inplaceoffees-betax_ucucompass_mar10.pdf

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NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE AT RUGBY CEMEX?

New Bilton Green Party (a local ward party of Rugby Green Party) have written to the Environment Agency to demand answers over concerns raised by local residents in New Bilton with the local Green Party over pollution and health fears from 'smoke' emanating from the CEMEX Plant, which is in the middle of New Bilton and Rugby (70,000 population) on Sunday 5^th December.

CEMEX a massive multinational are burning a combination of tyres and waste at the plant to provide a cheap fuel to make cement and have faced numerous actions by the Environment Agency including massive fines over its operations in the town.

As the letter (below) sent to the Environment Agency’s Officer David Hudson covering the Lawford Road site, indicates the plant has recently (August 2010) suffered an uncontrolled fire at its waste storage facility and local residents are understandably concerned - We in the Green Party also share these concerns!

To: 'David Hudson'
Subject: New Bilton residents concerns

Dear David

A number of local residents from New Bilton have been in contact with ourselves to raise concerns about the amount and nature of what appeared to be smoke emanating from the CEMEX Plant in Lawford Road Rugby on Sunday 5^th December 2010.

I personally also witnessed the unusual colour, quantity, behaviour and direction of the smoke, but was unable to make contact with the Environment Agency at the time due to the need to deal with other important issues, but did remark to the person I was with at the time my concerns.

I would ask you to provide full details of any investigation that the Environment Agency may have undertaken and the outcome. Please also confirm that the local residents who made contact with you have also been provided with this detailed information as well?

We note in the ‘Environment Agency Update number 4’ (August 2010) to the Community Cement Engagement Group (an organisation we may add unfortunately largely discredited in the eyes of many local people due to the removal of local skilled environment groups) of a recent fire resulting from the storage of waste for burning at the plant and we would ask you to provide a detailed response on the outcome of your investigation of this incident.

Please note, we will forward your response to the local residents who have contacted us and provide information for local residents in New Bilton and Rugby via our website.

Regards

Roy Sandison – New Bilton Green Party

LIB DEMS HIT 8% IN POLLS

Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 41%, LAB 41%, LDEM 8%. It’s the lowest Lib Dem score YouGov have ever shown, and as far as I can tell the lowest Liberal Democrat score any pollster has shown since September 1990, over 20 years ago.

I’ll add my normal caveats about not getting too excited about a single poll, new extreme highs and lows for parties do tend to be the outliers, but nevertheless, the fact that we’ve got our first 8% for the Lib Dems suggests that their support is still on a downwards trend. It is probably no co-incidence that this comes after several days of the Liberal Democrats internal ructions over tuition fees have been all over the political headlines.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2903

London Calling: National Demo on Parliament - SHUT DOWN LONDON

400 PEOPLE MARCH IN COVENTRY AGAINST THE CUTS IN IMPRESSIVE SHOW OF STRENGTH!

From Rugby Against The Cuts - http://rugbyagainstthecuts.blogspot.com/

Rugby residents joined the impressive 400 strong march in Coventry on Saturday - the demonstration supported by many local trade unions and students leading the fight against Clegg's Lib Democrats sell out over student Tuition Fees and their support for the abolishment of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) laid the basis for the first of many protests to come.
Youth workers in UNITE also joined the protest in large number from Warwickshire (where the Youth Service will cease under Tory plans) and Coventry where Labour intend to make large cuts. The rally agreed to support both set of workers in their struggle.

Please visit the Coventry Against the Cuts website for further reports about the protest and more pictures.- http://coventryagainstthecuts.blogspot.com/

* Rugby Green Voice comments - Greens from Coventry and Warwickshire also support the protest in numbers.

4 Dec 2010 March on Parliament for a Zero Carbon Britain

Part of a Global Day of Action on climate(www.globalclimatecampaign.org) on the Saturday midway through the UN Climate Talks in Cancún, Mexico.

COVENTRY AGAINST THE CUTS SAYS: DON'T LET COVENTRY BE TURNED INTO A GHOST TOWN AGAIN!

From Rugby Against The Cuts - http://rugbyagainstthecuts.blogspot.com/