Visiting the Houses of Parliament has become a relatively regular part of my life over the past few years, as I’ve found myself lobbying a number of MPs on a variety of issues. Mainly higher education-related. Entering the corridors leading to Central Lobby has become a matter of course, but there’s still a thrill that comes with walking through those historic halls each and every time I enter. It’s a shame the quality of dialogue which takes place within them rarely pays testament to the history and architecture containing it.
Given the way the media hyped up the second reading of the Higher Education Bill, back on January 27th, many people thought that the government’s narrow victory (the narrowest since 1945) was the end of the process and signalled the completion of the bill’s progress through parliament. It was no surprise that the campaign, led by the National Union of Students and a core group of labour rebels had to work hard to get the issue back on the agenda before the third reading yesterday.
[For those not familiar with the way a bill makes its way through the British parliament, an overview can be found at the UK parliament website]
Yesterday, after a lively debate on a variety of amendments (one of which, Amendment 128 which would have removed variability of fees from the bill, was barely defeated) and a twelve minute debate on the bill itself, the Higher Education Bill passed its third reading and so is sent on to the House of Lords.
Comments were made during that all too short debate on the bill about the government’s failure to set aside time for a substantive debate at this stage. That again is no surprise given how vocal the support has been and quite how much anger the government has generated by its failure to ever properly consult on this policy, their arrogance in ignoring a manifesto commitment, and the backdoor dealings that went on to win at the second reading. It has been one of the saddest signs of this government’s term of office that the normal consultation and parliamentary processes have been ignored or abused time and again.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere in Westminster yesterday was electric. The government had scheduled the third reading to take place during NUS Conference, when student leaders from across the country were all expected to be in Blackpool. It’s not clear whether that was a deliberate move but if it were it was an ill-informed one. Somewhere around 20 coaches full of those same students and student officers travelled through the night to be there, and filled Central Lobby and the corridors of the Palace of Westminster. The desk was running out of green cards (the cards filled in to request a meeting with an MP) by lunchtime and there were near constant calls across the public address system for people to come and meet their various MPs.
It is a shame that the government has consistently worked in opposition to public opinion on the key issues which have engaged young voters over the last couple of years. It is testament to the resilience of young political activists that any at all continue to turn up for events like this at all. Hopefully one of these days the government will listen, and reward that engagement. For the student movement, the fight continues into the House of Lords.