ONE’S voting for, one’s voting against and the other hasn’t made up his mind.

Three MPs in the Huddersfield area are divided on the issue of student tuition fees as the crunch vote looms in the House of Commons.

Parliament will decide on Thursday whether to back Government plans to increase the maximum universities can charge students per year from £3,375 to £9,000 by 2013.

Yesterday the Government announced that 18,000 poorer students could get a year’s free tuition as part of the proposal.

Huddersfield Labour MP Barry Sheerman said yesterday he would vote “emphatically” against increasing fees, while the Conservative MP for Dewsbury Simon Reevell said he would back the plan.

But his fellow Tory Jason McCartney told the Examiner yesterday he was undecided about the proposal.

The Colne Valley MP said: “I haven’t made my mind up yet. I’m going to use every hour of this week to consult as many people as possible.”

The Conservative said opinion was divided within the constituency.

“I was talking to Scouts in Honley who are aged 15 and 16 and feel that university might be beyond them because of the cost,” he said.

“But when I was in the queue at the bakery in Holmfirth on Friday when the issue came up in conversation and all six people in the line asked me why they should pay their taxes for other people to go to university.”

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman will oppose the tuition fee rise on Thursday.

The Labour man said: “I am emphatically against what the coalition government is doing.”

Mr Sheerman added that the proposed tuition fee rise was being accompanied by a cut in Government spending on most university courses.

“This is insidious,” he said. “This is about raising fees when funding is being slashed.”

Mr Sheerman claimed the previous Labour government had invested money from tuition payments back into universities.

He said: “Setting fees at £3,000 a year allowed universities to get a much bigger income. The fact that we have a thriving university sector is because of that investment.”

Dewsbury MP Simon Reevell will vote to back the tuition fee increase.

The Conservative said yesterday: “I shall vote for the new policy because I think it’s fair to ask people who will benefit from university to help meet the costs of it.

“I have only had 10 or 12 emails about this issue. It’s something that people are concerned with, but I haven’t been inundated about it.”