Greg Mulholland: We cannot compromise in this fight against a huge hike in student fees

However, it also proposes to increase student fees to double existing rates. This is something that I simply cannot support.

There is, indeed, a crisis in the funding of higher education, with reports that 518m will be axed from a budget of 7.8bn next year. This is a difficult problem and one that needs addressing. The critical issue for universities is that they get substantially increased

funding.

The critical issue for me, for the NUS and for future students and their families, is how much future students should be expected to pay.

There is no easy solution to this and it would be wrong – of me or anyone else – to pretend otherwise. But there are choices to be made in terms of how the money is found and other choices about what sort of

post-18 education is offered.

It now seems clear that the coalition Government will largely adopt the Browne Report, ending the leadership of the Liberal Democrats in opposing any move to lift the cap on tuition fees.

There are, however, Liberal Democrats, both on the backbenches and in wider party, who are not prepared to accept that.

David Cameron has said that those of us on the coalition benches must compromise. Indeed, we must. The Liberal Democrats have compromised by accepting, in the current very difficult economic circumstances, that it is no longer affordable to get rid of tuition fees through general taxation.

Fees cannot currently be abolished and perhaps, realistically, they never will be. That is a compromise many in the party have not wanted to make, but we accept we have to.

In recent weeks, Conservative MPs have made clear that they will not accept a graduate tax, which is one reason the Government has moved away from this as an idea.

Now it is time for Liberal Democrat backbenchers to say that we won't compromise on our belief that a huge fee hike is not an acceptable way to raise money for universities.

We opposed this at the election, and we genuinely fear higher education

becoming too much of a gamble for thousands of young people facing a huge level of debt following their graduation.

People ask if this is a challenge to the coalition. Of course, it is a challenge to this Government to justify any proposals that it brings forward, which is a key job always for Government backbenchers as well as Opposition parties.

Far from seeing this as a challenge to the existence of the coalition or a threat to its future, I see this process as an example of a healthier style of politics.

The coalition has already backtracked on key issues – over the level of capital gains tax and the percentage of support needed to trigger a vote of no confidence in the Government.

Both changes came about because of internal pressure from Government MPs rather than Opposition efforts.

Contrast that with the Stalinist approach of the New Labour governments to any form of dissent and rebellion within its ranks.

The coalition is allowing for much stronger and healthier scrutiny and the Government, I believe, will be the stronger for that.

However, we must stop looking at higher education in isolation and, instead, conduct a serious review and major overhaul of post-school education, something that is long overdue.

While university numbers have gone up, the skills gap in this country has widened with many people leaving education without the appropriate skills for their job or chosen career. That is as great a challenge to future economic success as the gap in higher education funding. Both must be resolved.

So, while it is true that higher education funding is in crisis, these questions must also be asked. Do we have too many higher education institutions offering too many courses to too many students? Are there some who go to university and saddle themselves with huge amounts of debt who would be better doing other courses and forms of education or training?

We have had a system that encourages people to go to university because there is a political target for 50 per cent of youngsters to do so, irrespective of whether it is the right thing for them to do or not.

So we need to ask even more difficult questions than the ones that are being asked of us at the moment. Higher education funding cannot continue to be looked at in isolation – further education is also a key element.

So the only kind of solution I can, and will, support is one that does not discourage many young people from going to university through fear of indebtedness, but also one that does more to equip all school-leavers with the education that they need to succeed in life.

That wider debate must happen now and an independent Liberal Democrat voice, inside and outside Parliament, must be a loud and distinct voice within it.