Ruth Davidson has set out plans to charge students £6,000 for a four-year degree after they graduate and are earning a salary as she argued the cost of providing ‘free benefits’ are hitting poor Scots.

The Scottish Tory leader told an STV leaders’ debate that she would want to reintroduce a charge of £1,500 per year and argued the SNP had paid for free university tuition by cutting thousands of college places.

In fiery exchanges, she pointed out that a far higher proportion of youngsters from deprived backgrounds attend universities south of the Border despite the existence of tuition fees.

Ms Davidson also argued for the reintroduction of prescription charges for the wealthy as the five leaders debated how to fund Scotland’s increasingly stretched health service, which is coming under pressure from the country’s ageing population.

But Ms Sturgeon argued that the Scottish Tory leader was trying to portray herself as protecting workers’ pay packets, while reintroducing charges for benefits that are currently provided for nothing.

Ms Sturgeon for the SNP, Labour’s Kezia Dugdale, Willie Rennie of the Liberal Democrats and the Greens’ Patrick Harvie used an STV leaders’ debate to outline their proposals to make Scotland’s middle earners pay more than the English.