I've hired lawyers to investigate judicial reviewing Govt's retrospective student lo 14 December 2015 at 11:45AM in Martin's blogs & appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the news 28 replies 6.7K views

MSE_Eesha

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "I've hired lawyers to investigate judicial reviewing Govt's retrospective student loan hike" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

Paul_Herring

So why will it cost more? Let’s take a simple example. If you earn £22,000 and the threshold had increased to £22,000, you’d have repaid nothing. But with it at £21,000 you’d repay £90 a year.

Scary numbers! Run away!

Since it's equivilent to salary sacrifice, that's (after tax) £1.18 less net pay per week.

And this doesn’t just hit the amount people pay each month. As many, if not most, students won’t repay in full within the 30 years before the loan wipes, it means they will repay possibly £1,000s more in total before the loan wipes.

So - who exactly would be paying the shortfall when it isn't repaid? Oh - the taxpayer.

Thus this is a regressive change – in other words it benefits high-earning graduates at the expense of lower or mid-earning ones.

And tax payers.

Far too many people are being pushed into university to get pointless degrees in Underwater Basket Weaving, Breathing for Credit and suchlike.

We need less going, so that the funds available to the remaining students go further and as a result we could perhaps reintroduce grants and bursaries to all, and stop the requirement to actually have students take out loans.

Yes, the taxpayer is still picking up the bill, but not for paying for pointless courses, but useful ones that will result in the students more likely to get higher paying jobs which has the knock on effect of more future taxes from higher paid jobs that they'll get.

VT82

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Scary numbers! Run away!

Since it's equivilent to salary sacrifice, that's (after tax) £1.18 less net pay per week.


So - who exactly would be paying the shortfall when it isn't repaid? Oh - the taxpayer.

Far too many people are being pushed into university to get pointless degrees in Underwater Basket Weaving, Breathing for Credit and suchlike.

We need less going, so that the funds available to the remaining students go further and as a result we could perhaps reintroduce grants and bursaries to all, and stop the requirement to actually have students take out loans.

Yes, the taxpayer is still picking up the bill, but not for paying for pointless courses, but useful ones that will result in the students more likely to get higher paying jobs which has the knock on effect of more future taxes from higher paid jobs that they'll get.

All of your arguments in isolation might have a point, but they are all irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is that the Government should not be able to mis-sell as blatantly as it is trying to do by making retrospective changes like this.

I'm not affected in the slightest (graduated in 2003 in a useful subject that led me to a good job), and I'm Tory through and through, but i still wrote to my MP about this as I do not like the deceitfulness on display.

Good luck Martin - hope they come to their senses and cave quickly.

spikyone

What’s the point of a consultation if you ignore the answers?

The point of the government conducting a consultation is not to implement exactly what those consulted asked for - because those who reply to a consultation tend to have a vested interest. The purpose is to seek alternative opinions and check that there is nothing that you may have missed. If every respondent said "I disagree because this will make me worse off", then I suspect the government had already considered this and decided it wasn't important. If Paul_Herring's calculation is correct I would agree with that conclusion.

I also agree that retrospectively changing the system is not fair. Ultimately though, for the sake of someone earning £22k+ being worse off by £90 a year, getting lawyered-up for a judicial review seems somewhat disproportionate. Whatever the outcome, the only people who stand to gain anything substantial from this judicial review are the judges (paid for by our taxes) and lawyers.

MSE_Martin

Paul Herring. The point here is about retrospective change - and the premise that a contract can be changed after you've signed up to it. Its a terrible deterrent for those from non traditional backgrounds and hard hits social mobility. Had it just been a change for new 2016 starters (as we explained in our consultation) while I wouldn't have been that keen, it would've been a legit policy

Spikyone. Respondents to consultations are usually representative organisations, charities, think tanks and others not just individuals saying i dont wan tto pay

torbrex

Perhaps you should run a poll just to see how many people actually care.

JimmyTheWig

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Scary numbers! Run away!

It's more than that, though.
In the first year they'd be paying £90 a year more I agree.
In the second year your salary might go up to £23k. You might have expected the threshold to go up to £23k, but it's staying at £21k so that's £180 extra you're paying in the second year.
And it gets worse. Much worse.

They've said they'll freeze it until 2022. You can be sure that _if_ they get away with it they'll keep it frozen beyond that.
So someone who graduates into a £21k salary and gets annual pay rises that match inflation of 3%, after 20 years would be earning £37,928.
If the threshold had increased with inflation, it too would be £37,928 and this person would repay nothing.
But with a frozen threshold they would pay £1,524.
In today's money, that's someone earning £21k having to pay an extra £70 a month.

MothballsWallet

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Paul Herring. The point here is about retrospective change - and the premise that a contract can be changed after you've signed up to it. Its a terrible deterrent for those from non traditional backgrounds and hard hits social mobility. Had it just been a change for new 2016 starters (as we explained in our consultation) while I wouldn't have been that keen, it would've been a legit policy

Spikyone. Respondents to consultations are usually representative organisations, charities, think tanks and others not just individuals saying i dont wan tto pay

The only real winners out of this will be the lawyers.

Also, we've got a Tory government: do you think they really care about ordinary people?

erudioed

Heres a petition on the subject that needs more than the terrible 66 currently signed up. It should have a hundred odd thousand signitures if those who will be affected know about it.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/110143
Please post far and wide!

patanne

Are we really happy that our young people are being taught that a contract is just a valueless piece of paper that you can sign and then ignore? I'm not.

I am happy that they will learn that governments are not to be trusted. The sooner they learn that the better.

Well done Martin. It's nice to see someone keeping their word.

torbrex

MothballsWallet wrote: »

The only real winners out of this will be the lawyers.

Also, we've got a Tory government: do you think they really care about ordinary people?

Maybe take the money that is going to be spent on the legal team and invest it into a hardship fund for any student that gets into genuine difficulty with the changes.