No rash promises on tuition fees, warns CBI

Published on Tuesday 15 March 2011 13:59

A BUSINESS leader has warned Scotland's politicians against making "rash promises" they cannot meet in their opposition to university tuition fees.

CBI Scotland director Iain McMillan said that the looming funding gap between Scottish and English universities could be more than twice the 93 million estimate by the Scottish Government. Ministers say this gap can be bridged without the need to introduce up-front or back-door fees, a position also endorsed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

But Mr McMillan warned yesterday: "Our politicians should avoid making rash promises that they may not be able to fulfil without signing a blank cheque or under-funding our universities."

Education secretary Mike Russell recently set out the findings of a report into future funding options looking at how to plug the gap between Scotland and England, where the UK government has announced it expects average fees to be about 7,500 a year.

He said an analysis of the report revealed the net funding gap in Scotland would be 93m in 2014-15. But in a speech to Scottish businesses in Glasgow, Mr McMillan said there is a "danger" in basing any political commitment to avoid graduate contributions on this figure.

"The 93m figure is at the lower end of the range of estimates and is controversial," he said. "Other estimates in the Scottish Government's paper suggest that the gap might be around 200m or more." Scottish universities are "international institutions" and need to compete with the best universities in the world, he added. "Politicians must be prepared to take hard decisions in the overall long-term interests of Scotland."

First Minister Alex Salmond set out his opposition to fees in a speech to the SNP conference at the weekend and a Scottish Government spokeswoman stressed yesterday that a funding gap will not be allowed to open up.

"The figures for what any gap might look like have been robustly developed in partnership with Scotland's universities and the figure of 93m is a direct result of that work.

"Opponents of free education should reflect on the fact that in the last week alone we have seen investment in a single university of almost 90 million for just one project," the spokeswoman said.

The Conservatives are the only party which backs some form of graduate contribution to address the universities funding gap.

Conservative education spokeswoman Liz Smith said: "We believe a progressive graduate contribution, repayable once a salary reaches a certain threshold at an affordable rate, is the only way of bridging the massive funding gap we will be faced with."