Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2010

I shall certainly give way to the noble Lord in just a moment. I remind the Labour Party that it had an opportunity to do a deal too, but it ran away. It did not want to participate in taking the responsibility for clearing up the mess that it left behind. It is important for the House to understand that. I agree that we have had to amend the view that we took, but we did so in order to put together a coalition Government in what we believed to be the national interest at a time of crisis. The Labour Party, too, has changed its policy, but it did not have to. I know that harsh words fall uneasily on the ears of noble Lords in this House, and I understand that, but this is a piece of naked opportunism. The truth is that Labour went into the election proposing tuition fees and is now against them. In the previous election, Labour was against tuition fees, and then proposed them. What is its policy now? Frankly, we do not know. The Leader of the Opposition says that there should be a graduate tax. Mr Johnson says he thinks that a graduate tax is unworkable—precisely the position of the noble Lord, Lord Browne—but he is then persuaded to say yes. Then, in answer to my question, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, seemed to tell me that the Labour Party was in favour of fees. What is its policy? I do not know; but at least, if we are asked, ““Why did you not fulfil your election promises?””, that question should be asked of Labour too. It did not have to propose an amendment for any reasons of national interest; it did so for reasons of an opportunistic ability to attack the Government.