The injustice of these Welsh and Scottish student fees is grotesque. Soon the English will insist on THEIR rights

There is a smug political consensus that Devolution has worked stunningly well.



So well that Tories, Lib Dems and Labour have joined forces in proposing to hand over more power to the Scottish Parliament. But what is the test of success?



Devolution is creating disparities in public services between the ­constituent parts of the United ­Kingdom. Nowhere are these ­differences more striking than in the area of tuition fees.



Hitherto they have been anomalous. They are about to become grotesque.



Devolved sense: A student throws a snowball at the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh as the fees protests threaten to divide the Union

Throughout England, students are protesting at being asked to pay £9,000 a year in tuition fees — roughly three times what is paid at the moment.



They are understandably frightened at the prospect of building up sizeable debts, which for those earning over the threshold of £21,000 a year will entail a substantial repayment every month.



This is a big deal for many people.

The rich will be all right, and the poor will be exempted. But everyone else will live under a new shadow of debt as a result of having had a university education.



Unless you live in Scotland or Wales. If you are Scottish, and attend a ­Scottish university, you will continue to pay nothing.



If you are Welsh, and attend a Welsh or an English ­university, you will pay the current tuition fees of £3,290 a year.



Welsh Assembly: If you live in Wales you will pay annual tuition fees of £3,290

Free for Jock. No increases for Taffy. A rise of 200 per cent for John Bull. Does that seem fair?



Fellow citizens of the United Kingdom will leave ­university, and start to earn their ­living, in drastically different ­financial circumstances.



They will pay — at any rate for the time being — the same income tax and the same Vat.



They will work for ­companies paying the same rate of ­corporation tax throughout Great ­Britain.



But, depending on which part of the United Kingdom they come from, they may incur no debt, some debt, or an awful lot of debt as a result of attending university.



This is so unjust and so irrational a state of affairs that I marvel how ­ministers in the Coalition can sleep at night.

The answer, perhaps, is that they realise that they can’t do anything about it — unless they wish to dismantle the Devolution ­settlement created by the last government which we are invited to believe has been so wonderfully beneficial.

Education has been devolved to Scotland and Wales, and if the ruling politicians in ­Edinburgh or Cardiff wish to offer free or heavily ­discounted university education, the United Kingdom Government can only look on impotently.



But actually the issue is not just one of divisive anomalies.



The extraordinary fact is that under the so-called Barnett ­Formula the English taxpayer is to some extent subsidising the Welsh Assembly and the ­Scottish Parliament, so that more money is spent per head of the population in those ­countries than is the case in England.



Spending per capita in ­England was about £4,800 this year. (It was lower in the ­South-East, and higher in the North.) In Wales it was £5,500, and in Scotland £6,100.



These figures will be trimmed as a result of the spending review, but the disparities will ­proportionately remain the same.



The justification for these arrangements is that Wales and Scotland are supposedly more deprived than most parts of ­England, and so the devolved governments are given greater resources.



In Scotland the choice has been made to divert extra funds to abolish tuition fees and improve health provision.



There is not only tuition fees apartheid. There is also health apartheid.



Relative to its ­population, Scotland has 80 per cent more nurses, ­midwives and health visitors than ­England. It also has nearly 50 per cent more ­doctors and dentists than England.



Prescriptions are free in Wales. Already reduced, they will soon be free in Scotland.



A number of expensive cancer drugs, as well as a drug for rheumatoid ­arthritis that costs £9,000 a year, have been licensed for NHS use in ­Scotland but not in England.



The inequity admittedly can happen in reverse, so that ­cancer drugs available in England have in one or two instances not been prescribed in Scotland.

Health apartheid has ­undoubtedly caused ­resentment in England, ­particularly among those who live close to the ­borders with Wales and ­Scotland, and are unable to enjoy the free or cheaper p­rescriptions ­available in those countries.



Fuelling a fire: The extreme disparities between the countries over tuition fees will lead to tensions in the Union, and expose similar problems in health

I would ­suggest, though, that ­tuition fees ­apartheid is liable to ­provoke even greater fury, ­involving as it does far more ­injurious ­disparities between England and the rest of the United Kingdom.



The further you drill down, the more lunatic these ­disparities are.



For example, a non-British EU citizen will be able to study at a Welsh ­university and pay fees of £3,290 a year, whereas an ­English ­student ­following the same course at the same ­university will have to pay £9,000 a year.



Even more ludicrously, because of EU rules, a ­Frenchman or other non-UK citizen who lives in Wales for three years and attends an English ­university will be charged fees of £3,290 a year, while an ­English student at the same university will pay £9,000 a year.



The Scottish system throws up its peculiar incongruities. At the moment an English student studying there pays £1,800 a year in fees.



Unless this figure is raised, there will be a stampede of students north of the border when the fees in England are increased to £9,000 a year.





Tragically, a gradual ­breaking apart of the Union is the likely eventual ­consequence of imposing much heavier fees on English students

Scottish students studying in England already have to pay £3,290 a year.



If this goes up to £9,000 a year, Scottish students south of the border — already rare because they can obtain an education at a Scottish ­university without paying any fees — will become an extinct species.



England will become more of a foreign land to many young Scots, and the links binding the two ­countries will be further loosened.



Tragically, a gradual ­breaking apart of the Union is the likely eventual ­consequence of imposing much heavier fees on English students than those on ­students elsewhere in ­Britain.



Arguably it is unfair to ask any young person to shell out £9,000 a year. Beyond ­dispute it is unjust when that burden falls uniquely on ­English students.



These students’ resentment will grow when they consider that they are partly subsidising their Scottish and Welsh ­counterparts, paying off debts for ten or 20 years which their fellow citizens in Wales will bear to a much lesser extent, and in Scotland not at all.

Is there a solution?



Poll Should Welsh students be spared tuition fees rise? Yes No Should Welsh students be spared tuition fees rise? Yes 5063 votes

No 15504 votes Now share your opinion





The ­Coalition won’t change its mind and stick at the present level of fees because it can’t afford to. It doesn’t dare get rid of subsidies to Scotland and Wales.



The Devolution ­settlement will not be reversed.



I write as a fervent Unionist who is full of foreboding. The English will not endure these insane anomalies for ever ­without complaint.

The ­consensus about Devolution is wrong.



It has created a mess of contradictions and disparities, and the blind injustice of it will slowly eat away at the consent and will of the English to remain part of the United Kingdom.



Sooner or later the English will refuse to go on ­subsidising Scotland and Wales any longer, and start insisting on their rights.