Downing Street Says » Tuition fees

» Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Tuition fees

Asked what the Prime Minister thought of Vince Cable’s comments regarding abstaining from the tuition fees vote, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that the fact that Liberal Democrat MPs would be able to abstain on this issue was announced by way of the Coalition Document many months ago, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

Put that it was odd that the Minister who was leading this policy should be so ambivalent, the PMS said that Vince Cable had said that he might abstain, which people knew could be the case as it was written in the Coalition Document.

Asked if the Prime Minister was frustrated, the PMS said that our priority was to implement the reforms we had set out.

Put that it was impossible for there to be collective responsibility and for people to abstain from a vote, the PMS said that both did apply; there was collective responsibility as there was with any government, but as this was a coalition government there were certain provisions, as set out in the Coalition Document.

Asked if the Prime Minister would be relaxed about Cabinet colleagues abstaining from a flagship policy, the PMS said that the priority was to implement the policy.

Asked how the Prime Minister would prefer Nick Clegg and Vince Cable to vote, the PMS said that the Prime Minister would like to see people abide by the Coalition Document.

Put that it had been six months since the Coalition formed and that the Liberal Democrats should have made clear what they were going to do by now, the PMS said that it was clear that the Liberal Democrats had a particular position on this ahead of the General Election and that was why the Coalition Document was drawn up in the way it was. Those provisions applied and there was nothing further to add.

Asked if the Prime Minister regarded it a case of bad faith if Cabinet Ministers decided to vote against the proposals, the PMS said that he would not get into speculation about a vote that hadn’t happened yet.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.