Tories put tuition fees at top of campaign agenda

Published on Monday 4 April 2011 18:16

Plans to make students pay up to £16,000 towards the cost of their degree were unveiled by Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie yesterday.

Children could also be allowed to leave school at the age of 14 if they have an apprenticeship or college place, she said.

The Tories launched their manifesto for the Holyrood election in Glasgow yesterday.

A graduate contribution is at the heart of the plans designed to prevent Scottish Universities falling behind rival institutions in England, which will soon be able to charge fees of up to 9,000 a year. This has prompted student riots south of the Border.

Miss Goldie said: "Scottish universities have a fine tradition, a proud reputation but that can only continue if there are additional sources of funding.

"This issue has already set us apart from other parties in the campaign. I shall not be cowed and I shall not be silenced because the public deserves to hear the truth."

She added: "The status quo is not tenable and the introduction of upfront tuition fees is unacceptable. Our proposed graduate contribution will be based on a university cost of 3,600 and we set a cap, at just 4,000."

Most degrees in Scotland take four years to complete, meaning that students could face a bill of 16,000 at the end of their studies.

The SNP, Labour and Liberal Democrats have all ruled out tuition fees after a recent Scottish Government report found that the looming gap between Scottish and English universities would be 93 million.

They have claimed this can be made up by the government.

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However, university principals in Scotland have said the gap could be double this and warned opponents of fees that their plans are "not credible".

NUS Scotland president Liam Burns yesterday that the Scottish Tory proposals could leave some students with debts of more than 30,000.

He said: "Considering how unpopular reforms down south have been, it's surprising that the Scottish Conservatives wish to blindly follow the disastrous route of huge fees and huge cuts to universities inflicted on students by their counterparts in the rest of the UK.

"Fees are entirely discredited and unjust, and we know they put off the poorest students from ever going to university.

"The funding gap between Scottish and English universities is much lower than feared making fees a political choice not a necessity."

The proposal to let some 14-year-olds leave school and take up apprenticeships or full-time vocational or technical training is part of a drive to make the school curriculum more flexible.

The party would also allow charities, philanthropists, not-for-profit trusts and groups of parents to set up schools and allow existing state schools to be run independently of local authority control.Headteachers at schools remaining under council control would be given more power over the running of their schools, particularly in terms of discipline, recruitment and budgets.

The Tories said they would also reform testing of reading, writing and arithmetic to make them "more rigorous".

Prescription charges would be re-introduced under the party's plans, along with short-term prison sentences, which were scrapped by the SNP, while the age of eligibility for the national free bus fares scheme would be raised from 60 to 65.

A knife amnesty would be held in an attempt to remove the weapons from the streets.

Labour leader Iain Gray called the Tories the "party of unfairness" after the plans were set out.

He said: "Charging more for prescriptions, charging students thousands for the chance of going to university, not sorting out buses that don't serve local people, bigger water charges, abolishing protection for agricultural workers - all these show that the Tories just don't understand families."

Pensioners would get a 200 discount on their council tax, which would be frozen until 2013.

Any future rises above inflation would have to approved through a local referedum.

To protect jobs, the pay of public sector workers earning more than 21,000 would be frozen until April 2013, and compulsory redundancies would not be ruled out.

A "pothole fund" of over 200m would be set up to upgrade and repair Scotland's roads to give councils additional money for road maintenance.

Directly elected police commissioners would also be introduced by the party and referenda will also be held in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen on proposals to introduce powerful new elected city Provosts.

The borrowing powers in the Scotland Bill, currently going through Westminster, will be used to allow completion of the Forth replacement crossing.Key Tory manifesto pledges

• Pupils will be allowed to leave school at 14 if they have secured a monitored apprenticeship or a full-time technical training programme at college

• University fees to be introduced at a rate of about 3,600 a year, variable by the institution. They will be capped at 4,000.

• Council tax will remain frozen for the next two years and after this any rise above the rate of inflation could be blocked locally in a referendum. Pensioners will get a 200 rebate.

• Scottish Water to be mutualised and become a public interest company, freeing up 560m of funding over the next four years.

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