G HARRIS has obviously not looked hard to find any Liberal Democrat successes in the coalition (HAS, July 21).
Yes, the promise not to raise university fees was a disaster. The mistake was in not explaining we could only fulfil that promise if we were the government as both the other parties were in favour of the rise.
However, we have improved what both parties were proposing and, as a result, it is estimated that only 45 per cent of students will pay back their loan.
Being the very minor party in the coaltion, it was a matter of negotiating our priorities. The biggest success was the introduction of the Pupil Premium, one of the key elements in our manifesto. Even in its early days, this is proving a tremendous success as there has been a big increase in the number of children on free school meals who ge five or more A to C GCSE passes, including maths and English. This figure will increase as children who have had more years of support pass through the system.
Mr Harris omits to mention that each year the starting point for paying tax has been raised by £500 so that many more low paid workers no longer pay tax, and we stopped the Tories reducing the upper rate to 40 per cent.
Our third success is the Triple Lock which ensures that each year pensioners get a rise based on the best of three criteria.
I suggest we have more than punched our weight.
Brian Fiske, Darlington Lib Dems.
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