Letter: Tuition parity

I am intrigued by the letter from former Ukip candidate, Otto Inglis (7 July), which calls Scottish Government proposals to charge students from the rest of the UK as "unjust".

It was not the Scottish Government's decision to impose fees of up to 9,000 a year on students, but the ConDem government at Westminster, which has forced the government north of the Border to take this decision.

It would therefore be more appropriate for him to focus his attention on Westminster, and not Holyrood.

Mr Inglis furthermore comments that there is an apparent net subsidy to Scotland from England, despite the latest official Government Expenditure and Revenue statistics indicating that Scotland has now been in a stronger financial position than the UK as a whole for each of the last five years, reinforcing the fact that Scotland contributes more to the UK exchequer than is received in public spending.

In conclusion he also naively calls on Westminster to enact legislation which would prevent people from one part of the UK being treated in a different way than those from another. This, however, is the nature of devolution, but as a Ukip activist Mr Inglis is of course in favour of abolishing the Scottish Parliament and consigning devolution to the dustbin of history.

Alex Orr

Leamington Terrace

Edinburgh

Otto Inglis obviously has great difficulty seeing both sides of the coin when he complains so bitterly about English students having to pay for further education in Scottish universities.

He totally avoids the fact that Scottish students will have to pay 9,000 annually to attend English universities while English students will only pay an average fee of 6,375 in Scotland.

This shows that it will be Scottish students who will be discriminated against.

The idea that the English subsidise Scotand and our universities is a far-fetched unionist fallacy.

J Morrison

Haig Street

Portknockie, Buckie