Dear Jeremy,

I was working at Saatchi & Saatchi in the early 1980’s, when the agency was working hand in glove with the Conservative Party. Not that I ever had anything to do with them, being a founder member of the short-lived SDP. The ad below was one of the most famous produced during the 1983 General Election. Written by the then creative director, Jeremy Sinclair.

I remember remonstrating with Tim, now Lord Bell, our then CEO, about the tendentious claims made in the ad. But this was politics - and advertising - and the general view was that the end justified the means, and why should facts get in the way of a good story.

If the Labour manifesto leaked yesterday bears any relationship to what will be unveiled officially next week, one of its headline promises will be the abolition of university tuition fees.

Jeremy, I’m here to tell you that if you want to help disadvantaged young people, abolishing tuition fees is not the solution. In fact, the evidence suggests that since the introduction of tuition fees, the numbers of disadvantaged young people applying to university has increased, not reduced. While I was at Exeter, I commissioned research amongst so-called WP (widening participation) students, and few if any had a problem with the new loan system. It had created a level playing field, and they appreciated that the loan would only have to be re-paid if they subsequently earned more than the threshold. They were fine with that.

The problem they did have was with living costs. We heard stories about people choosing between buying books and turning the heating on. About students running several part-time jobs whilst trying to study at the same time. About students so short of money that they occasionally stole food from their flatmates. Not for them the Bank of Mum & Dad. They had to be completely self-reliant - sometimes to the detriment of their studies.

Professor Les Ebdon, Head of the Office of Fair Access, once told me that the entire university sector spent £750,000,000 every year on ‘widening participation’, representing around 10% of each and every student’s annual £9000+ fee.  In an effort to sate Professor Ebdon and  OFFA, universities have developed labyrinthine departments, papers, complex arguments, ‘strategies’ and contextual offers in an effort to persuade more young people to consider a university education. The focus is on pleasing the OFFA bureaucracy, not helping disadvantaged students.

The single most powerful idea that the sector could offer would be to pay WP students say £12,000 pa while they were studying. The money is there. Every single university student paying upwards of £9,000 pa is unwittingly contributing £1,000 pa to the £750 million. So there would be no need for new money - no need to raise corporation tax to levels which stifle enterprise. If disadvantaged families knew that their kids would be paid to go to university, think of the effect this could have on educational aspirations long-term.

Yes, this strategy would mean that wealthier families would subsidise poorer families.  But I cannot imagine that you Jeremy, of all people, would have a problem with this.