Peers vote by majority of 68 to raise tuition fees

The House of Lords has voted by 283 to 215 against Labour’s move to overturn the controversial decision to raise student tuition fees. The majority of 68 gives the government a clear victory in the House of Lords, compared to last weeks House of Commons vote.

The Government won the tuition fees vote in the House of Commons last week, and now the Lords have voted on raising tuition fees up to £9,000 a year.

Labour had tabled a so-called “fatal amendment” in a last ditch attempt to stop the proposals and some Liberal Democrat peers were expected to rebel against the Government, as did their colleagues in the House of Commons.

The Liberal Democrat higher education spokeswoman in the Lords, Baroness Sharp, even told The Guardian she faced a “dilemma” over the vote and said she had “not decided” yet how she would be voting. However, as the Coalition has a 40-seat majority in the Upper House, and the vote was expected to be won by the Government.

Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon said the Government expected to win the vote more easily than it did in the Commons.

“If the Government gets its way tonight, the universities will be able to put together their prospectuses for the 2012 term and have some prices on them” he added.

Protests

This has not deterred demonstrators, with more – albeit smaller – student protests today around both New Scotland Yard and Parliament. In another high profile blow for the Liberal Democrats, who have had a torrid time over their policy reversal on tuition fees since the election, actor Colin Firth said yesterday that he understood the students’ anger.

Speaking at a film festival in Dubai, he said: “I think it is profoundly disillusioning if you are a student who registered to vote simply because of what the Liberal Democrat were promising, and many, many did and simply because of what the Liberal Democrats had to say about tuition fees and things. It is one of the reasons I went in that direction.”

While the National Union of Students (NUS) and University of London Union said they had no protests planned today, a group called the Education Activist Network (EAN) said students would tables on police and “kettle” them around New Scotland Yard.

“I think it is profoundly disillusioning if you are a student who registered to vote simply because of what the Liberal Democrats were promising.” Actor Colin Firth

Kettling, a controversial police tactic for managing crowds by containing them, has been used by the police in the other recent student protests.

Protesters linked arms around New Scotland Yard in support of 20-year old Alfie Meadows, who needed brain surgery after allegedly being struck by a police truncheon at last Thursday’s protests.

Mr Meadows’ mother, Susan, told Channel 4 News: “Alfie is at home but has staples in his head and is struggling to come to terms with what’s happened to him.”

She was at the protest, and says she saw terror on the faces of those who were kettled.

“It can’t be the the right police policy,” she said, adding that it had completely changed her view of the police.

Mr Bergfeld told Channel 4 News: “We will exercise our democratic right to protest. The student protesters on the previous demonstrations have been kettled over and over, denied their right to protest and their basic human rights.

“They’ve been kept in freezing temperatures for eight and even 10 hours at a time. What we’re saying is that we have the right to protest in the face of attacks by a Government that is making the deepest cuts since the Second World War.”

Around 30 protesters linked arms around New Scotland Yard, and will move to Parliament later, for the vote.

“What we’re saying is that we have the right to protest in the face of attacks by a Government that is making the deepest cuts since the Second World War.” EAN spokesman Mark Bergfeld

But Mr Bergfeld said that whatever happened there would be more protests.

“We have been clear since the start that this is just the beginning, not the end, and we are already planning a demo in the New Year,” he said.

“We are planning walk-outs on different days, a national assembly of all of the different occupations, and we will continue to target MPs in their constituency surgeries for their betrayal.”

Police

Scotland Yard confirmed last night that it is in talks with the Northern Irish police over the possible deployment of water cannons if the demonstrations get out of hand, as they did last week when the Prince of Wales’ car was attacked.

However the Home Secretary, Theresa May, yesterday said her approval would be required for the use of water cannons – which she did not think necessary.

“I don’t think anybody wants to see water cannons used on the streets of Britain,” she said.