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The SNP has
committed "a double own-goal" over student grants and fees.
The SNP have been caught red-handed trying to mislead
students and parents into believing that fees could disappear and loans be
replaced by grants at costs which bore no
relationship to the reality.
Scottish Executive
Minister, Allan Wilson, said today that the SNP had committed "a double
own-goal" over student grants and fees. Mr Wilson was responding to the
findings of an independent assessment that concluded that the SNP had
massively underestimated the cost of their student finance plans. He also
ridiculed Nationalist claims that the figures had been ‘leaked’ and said the
figures had been in the public domain for some time and had actually been
requested by the SNP itself.
Mr Wilson said: "The SNP have been caught red-handed trying to mislead
students and parents into believing that fees could disappear and loans be
replaced by grants at costs which bore no relationship to the reality. The
Nationalists knew perfectly well that the claims they were making about
abolishing student fees and loans were based on utterly false figures.”
"The information now in the public domain was independently-produced by the
civil service at the request of the SNP. They requested the figures and now
they want them suppressed. If they didn't want the answers to become public,
why did they ask the questions? It is because they know it blows their
flagship policy out of the water. It is time for the SNP to come clean on
their attempts to mislead the Scottish people on student finance."
Notes:
- The calculations now in the public domain were put together after the
recent debate in the Scottish Parliament, rather than before it, and this
work was done in response to a significant number of Parliamentary questions
tabled by Fiona Hyslop, the SNP's education spokeswoman.
- On 1 August 2005, Allan Wilson wrote to Fiona Hyslop, in response to
questions from her, setting out the Executive's position on student finances
and explaining the costs that would attach to various alternative courses of
action, including those epsoused by the SNP.
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