Published: Saturday, 21st November, 2009 1:00pm

MP and challengers in fees debate

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NUS President Wes Streeting, Green candidate Rob White and Lib Dem Gareth Epps

STUDENTS grilled their MP and his challengers over higher-education funding and mounting debt levels.

The debate on Thursday night at Reading University was the highlight of a week of Town Takeover protests, organised by the National Union of Students (NUS) and the university's branch, RUSU.

Hundreds of people showed their support for the campaign in Broad Street last week by being photographed holding 'I support a fairer funding system' signs.

At Thursday's discussion panel, Reading East MP Rob Wilson clashed with three of his parliamentary challengers: Labour's Anneliese Dodds, Lib Dem Gareth Epps and Green candidate Rob White.

NUS vice-president Aaron Porter (speaking), Reading East MP Rob Wilson and Labour candidate Anneliese Dodds

Mr Wilson, a former RUSU president and until January a shadow higher education minister, was urged to sign a pledge to vote against any increase in fees during the next parliament and to pressure the Government to introduce a "fairer alternative" - but he refused, citing collective responsibility with his Tory colleagues and the pressures on Government budgets caused by the financial crisis.

He said he did not want to pre-empt the ongoing review into higher education funding, but said he was "sympathetic" to the NUS demand for greater student representation on the body - currently just one of the seven on it is a student. He said he had raised the issue with the Government in the Commons and in writing, and would not accept any recommendation which hurt the poorest applicants.

Mr White did sign the pledge, saying he thought higher education should be free for those who wanted it - but admitted when pressed that if 100% of young people chose to go to university, a Green Government would "have to think" how to pay for that.

Cllr Epps also signed and branded the current loans crisis, in which some students still have not received their money, "unacceptable" and added: "The chief executive of the Student Loans Company should have been forced out by the Government."

He said the Lib Dem's policy committee backed scrapping tuition fees, despite the party leadership saying at its conference in September that keeping it was "unrealistic".

Students at one of the Town Takeover events

Ms Dodds, a lecturer herself at King's College London, signed the pledge and defended the Government's record on widening access to university but said: "I don't agree with variable fees."

She said university managers were also to blame for the current scramble to lift the £3,000 on tuition fees and that politicians were not solely responsible.

NUS president Wes Streeting said he opposed allowing universities to charge different fees, because this would lead to poorer students being forced to choose poorer quality universities regardless of their abilities.