Tuition fees were first introduced across the entire United Kingdom in September 1998 as a means of funding tuition to undergraduate and postgraduate certificate students at universities, with students being required to pay up to £1,000 a year for tuition. However, as a result of the establishment of devolved national administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, different arrangements now exist with regard to the charging of tuition fees in each of the countries of the United Kingdom.

In England, developments in the funding of higher education were announced in January 2004 when the UK government increased the level of tuition fees that universities were allowed to charge, to £3,000 a year. By 2010/11, maximum fees had increased to £3,290. In 2009, further calls for more funding to be made available to universities resulted in the commissioning of a report from the former chairman of BP John Browne to look into the future of higher education funding. The Browne Review was published on 12 October 2010 and contained proposals to remove the cap on tuition fees. The resulting debate on the proposals sparked protests from students opposed to any rise in tuition fees. Despite these protests the government won a vote in the House of Commons which would result in universities eventually being able to charge students up to £9,000 a year for the annual tuition costs of students. Sixty four universities have announced their intention to charge the full £9,000 allowed by the government from 2012.

Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson, Baroness Randerson (born 26 May 1948) is a Welsh Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.

Randerson was educated at Bedford College, University of London. She was a Cardiff councillor 1983-2000 and was a lecturer at Cardiff Tertiary College. She led the official opposition on the Council in Cardiff for four years. She introduced "Creative Future", a culture strategy for Wales and "Iaith Pawb", a strategy for the Welsh Language.

She was Minister for Culture and Sport and the Welsh Language in the Liberal Democrat/Labour Partnership Government from 2000 to 2003. She was acting Welsh Deputy First Minister from 6 July 2001 to 13 June 2002.

She was Health and Social Services; Equal Opportunities and Finance Spokeswoman for the Welsh Liberal Democrats during the Second Assembly. She chaired Assembly Business and Standing Orders Committees during the Second Assembly.

Jenny stood for the leadership of the Welsh Liberal Democrats in 2008 but was defeated by Kirsty Williams who gained 60% to Jenny's 40% of the all member ballot.

Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is the British Liberal Democrat Leader since 2007 and currently the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council (with special responsibility for political and constitutional reform) in the coalition government of which David Cameron is the Prime Minister. Clegg has been the Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2007, and a Member of Parliament (MP) representing Sheffield Hallam since 2005. He was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and an award winning journalist for the Financial Times.

Clegg was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election and became the Liberal Democrats' Home Affairs spokesperson in 2006. Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister following the 2010 general election, when the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party. As well as his parliamentary roles, Clegg has contributed to many pamphlets and books on political issues. He has also had a large number of jobs, including being a skiing instructor and working in the office of a bank in Helsinki.

Simon Henry Ward Hughes (born 17 May 1951) is a British politician and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats. He is Member of Parliament for the constituency of Bermondsey and Old Southwark. Until 2008 he was President of the Liberal Democrats (the party president chairs a number of party committees and also represents the party at official functions). Hughes has twice run unsuccessfully for the leadership of the party and was its unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of London in the 2004 election. He is also Chair of the trustees for the Thames Festival, a weekend of events on London's South Bank.

He was appointed as a Privy Counsellor on 15 December 2010.

Hughes was born in Cheshire, England, and partly brought up in Wales. He was educated at The Cathedral School, Llandaff where he was Dean's Scholar and Head Boy in 1964; Christ College, Brecon; Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a 2:1 in Law; and the College of Europe in Bruges, where he earned a postgraduate Certificate of Advanced European Studies (equivalent to a Master's degree). Hughes was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1974. He moved to Bermondsey in 1981.

David Linsay Willetts (born 9 March 1956) is a British Conservative Party politician and the Minister of State for Universities and Science. He is the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the constituency of Havant in Hampshire.

Willetts was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Willets graduated with a first class degree.

Having served as Nigel Lawson's private researcher,^{[citation needed]} Willetts took charge of the Treasury monetary policy division at 26 before moving over to Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit at 28. Aged 31, he subsequently took over the Centre for Policy Studies.

Aged 36, Willetts entered Parliament in 1992 as the MP for Havant. He quickly established himself in Parliament, becoming a Whip, a Cabinet Office Minister, and then Paymaster General in his first term (when that role was split between the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury as a policy co-ordination role). During this period Willetts' gained "Two Brains" as a nickname, a monicker reportedly coined by The Guardian's former political editor Michael White. However, Willetts was forced to resign from the latter post by the Standards and Privileges Committee over an investigation into Neil Hamilton in 1996, when it found that he had "dissembled" in his evidence to the Committee over whether pressure was put onto an earlier investigation into Hamilton.