Stevenson & Martin: SNP to Protect Students from Tory Taxes

Tory "Ideological Obsession" Would Raise Next to Nothing in Next Parliament
SNP candidate for Banffshire & Buchan Coast Stewart Stevenson and SNP candidate for Aberdeenshire East Gillian Martin have re-affirmed the party’s commitment to free education as Tory plans to tax students £6000 for a degree were exposed.

Analysis of the Tories’ plans to hit students with a tuition tax shows that the plan would raise next to nothing in the next Parliament, but risks putting students off going to university and would end the principle of free education.

The analysis shows that instead of raising £100m over the Parliament as the Tories originally claimed, it could bring in as little as £200,000.

A re-elected SNP Government will continue to protect free higher education.

Commenting, SNP candidate for Banffshire & Buchan Coast Stewart Stevenson said:

“This scheme is less about funding universities and colleges and more about the Tories’ ideological obsession with introducing fees.

“It will raise almost nothing in the next five years but what it will do is put people from poorer backgrounds off going to university.”

SNP candidate for Aberdeenshire East Gillian Martin added:

“Since the old back-door fees were abolished, the number of graduates from poorer backgrounds has risen by almost a third. That would be at serious risk if the Tories had their way.

“We will never introduce tuition fees, either upfront or via the back door. Going to university should be based on ability to learn not ability to pay.”