Young Scots have better future in UK - Davidson

A VOTE for independence would be “closing off avenues of opportunity” to young Scots from which their parents benefited, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will claim in a speech to No supporters today.

Ms Davidson will warn against lack of opportunity for young. Picture: PA

She will tell them the “security and opportunities afforded by a larger UK” means young people have a better chance of career success and economic prosperity.

In her speech to young supporters of Better Together, she will claim older Scots have a responsibility not to “pull up the ladder from our young people” by voting to leave the UK.

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Ms Davidson will suggest that politicians have to do more to “listen to their voices” ahead of the referendum, in which 16- and 17-year-olds are eligible to vote.

She is also expected to highlight the “devolution generation”, claiming they will be more affluent in the UK.

The Tory leader is expected to say: “If we vote to leave the UK, we’d be closing off avenues of opportunity for Scotland’s young people that have existed for generations.”

However, pro-independence leaders said Conservative-led governments had presided over inequality and destroyed opportunities for young people.

A spokesman for Scotland’s education secretary, Mike Russell, said: “The Tory party have dismantled free higher education south of the Border, are gutting the welfare system and privatising the NHS.

“In the face of this political vandalism, it takes a breathtaking level of duplicity for Ruth Davidson to lecture young people on opportunities.”

Yes Scotland operations manager Sarah-Jane Walls said: “The Tory government in the 1980s – which Scotland massively rejected – consigned a whole generation of young people to the dole queue.”

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