a graduate tax because of the repayment method and the fact that debts are written off after 30 years, so that it would for over half of graduates act as a "30-year graduate tax of 9%". The IFS noted an important difference was that the Browne proposals would retain a market among universities. Financial journalist Paul Lewis said in 2014 that the new system was "effectively" a graduate tax: "it's 9% of your earnings above £21,000, you'll pay it throughout your adult life." Then-Leader of the Liberal Democrats and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said in 2015: "What we have introduced is a graduate tax and I really wish we had called it a graduate tax at the time". Another difference includes the possibility of a graduate tax, depending on how it was designed, being vulnerable to future government cuts as it operates through the government treasury. Existing tuition debt might also have to be transferred to the treasury, potentially adding billions of pounds to the deficit. A graduate tax would prevent financially better off graduates from making up-front payments to reduce the total they would repay due to interest, whereas the current system does not. Benefits A graduate tax would allow education to be free at the point of delivery. Proponents claim that one benefit of a graduate tax is that it would prevent a market in higher education developing whereby students chose where and what to study based upon the ability to pay rather than academic ability. A graduate tax might raise more money for universities over the long term than capped tuition fees, depending on the level of the cap. David Greenaway, a critic of a graduate tax admits that an "obvious attraction" of such a tax is that it is levied only on graduates, the immediate beneficiaries of higher education. Under the NUS's proposals a 'People's Trust' would be set up that would be independent of the Treasury. The current system of loans has been seen as unviable because they require an expensive public subsidy to universities. David Willets has described how a rise in tuition fees would increase public spending: "It is in such delicate equilibrium that shifting any single element requires us to shift everything else. If fees were to go up, the government would have to lend people the money to pay for them - and that would push up public spending....It's