Aaron Porter, NUS President, said:
"Students will take no lectures from Nick Clegg. It does absolutely nothing for public trust in politics to have politicians breaking cast-iron promises they have made to voters. We listened carefully to him before the election when he said that he would resist, vote against, campaign against any increase in fees. He even said he wanted to join forces with us and to top it all signed our pledge in front of students. He should go back and examine both that document and his conscience before he asks students to believe anything he says."
"Nick Clegg's claims that the Government's proposals are close to the graduate tax advocated by NUS are distorted nonsense. He is proposing the removal 80 per cent of teaching funding for universities and asking the next generation to shoulder the bill through a tripling of fees and now has the gall to argue that is fair. Students, families and the public at large are overwhelmingly inclined not to believe him. As he correctly notes, however, it remains Liberal Democrat policy to abolish tuition fees."