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Letter to
Editor, Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald
Ms Sturgeon’s attempt to cost her party’s commitments
on student support at £100 million per year (Letters, December 15)
may win an award for shamelessness but certainly not for arithmetic or
accountancy.
Sir,
I am grateful to Nicola Sturgeon, deputy leader of the Scottish
Nationalists, for stepping in where her Education
spokesperson, Fiona Hyslop, sensibly fears to tread. Ms Sturgeon’s attempt
to cost her party’s commitments on student support at £100 million per year
(Letters, December 15) may win an award for shamelessness but certainly not
for arithmetic or accountancy.
Ms Sturgeon is also wrong to claim that the “independent” source of
information that I refer to is no longer the Civil Service. On the contrary,
she should be clear that the calculations have indeed been provided by the
Civil Service. When I first challenged the SNP on their claims, there was
much hot-air from them about the “political” use of the Civil Service who
were charmingly described by Ms Sturgeon’s leader, Mr Salmond, as
“lickspittles”.
Interestingly, the sound and fury was misplaced. This was because the Civil
Service, far from being involved in some political conspiracy, had merely
done the homework necessary in order to respond to a large number of
Parliamentary questions tabled by Ms Hyslop, as well as correspondence from
that source. The Nationalists’ problem is that the answers did not fit in
with their bogus claims and empty promises.
The cost of converting loans to grants would, by itself, be £160 million per
annum. In other words, the actual cost of one Nationalist promise is more
than half as much again as the total amount quoted by them against their
package of three – conversion from loan to grants, abolition of the graduate
endowment and writing off of student debt. The cost of abolishing the
graduate endowment is another £20 million per annum, so that takes us up to
£180 million.
But it is when we come to “writing off debt” – a fine-sounding election
promise if nobody asks about the cost – that the SNP are found at their most
slippery. At 31st March 2006, the outstanding student loan balance for
Scottish students was £1.639 billion. (If Ms Sturgeon wants the detailed
breakdown of that figure, she is welcome to it though her colleague, Ms
Hyslop, was given it months ago which doubtless explains her silence).
Ms Sturgeon’s difficulties with counting up to £100 million seem to be as
nothing compared to her problems with some basic rules of accountancy. I
know that the SNP would prefer simply to ignore all such rules in order to
make their promises seem plausible. However, it is not within their gift to
do so since student debt is held by the Treasury and any attempt simply to
renege on it in order to meet a political pledge could be countered with the
greatest of ease.
Furthermore, if it was decided by a hypothetical SNP administration that the
debt was to be written off, then under existing financial arrangements, it
would have to be written off in one year and it would have to come from the
Department of Enterprise and Learning budget. Audit Scotland – whose very
name Ms Sturgeon could not resist sneering at when we discussed this matter
recently on television – are clear that once something is no longer held to
be a debt, then it cannot be held on the balance sheet and must be written
off via the Operating Statement. Treasury funding to the Scottish Executive,
in the year of the write-off, would therefore be commensurately reduced.
In other words, the SNP’s incoherent proposals to cancel all existing and
historic graduate debt would cost nearly £1.7 billion while creating not one
extra place at college or university. Neither would it contribute a brass
farthing to the quality of teaching and research at our academic
institutions.
Even leaving aside their monstrous dishonesty on the impact of cancelling
existing debt, the SNP’s other two spending commitments would, between them,
cost 80 per cent more annually than the figure claimed by them for the whole
package. To make such ridiculous and uncosted promises is political
opportunism of a pretty high order. To have such a flagrant disregard, in
doing so, for the real needs of the Further and Higher education sectors is
breathtaking.
Let me be absolutely clear. Even if I had all these hundreds of mythical
extra millions at my disposal, which I do not, there would be many higher
priorities for a Labour administration than the ones put forward by the
Nationalists. Each and every one of our priorities would be required to
impact upon the quality of education and training offered to the 53 per cent
of school-leavers who are now engaged in Further and Higher Education.
For those who want to see clear, blue water between political philosophies,
as well as an object lesson in the dishonesty of uncosted promises, I am
grateful to Ms Sturgeon for providing them.
Yours etc
Allan Wilson
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