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Unfair fees for different regions of the UK is it legal ?

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Original post by Stunted Elf
Honestly I can't believe that University fees vary so much from one area to another, I was just looking up Open University fees and there is a HUGE disparity between what English, welsh and Scottish students have to pay. Surely this is completely unfair and totally unacceptable form of discrimination, is it even legal in UK law ?

-edit it's not confined to the OU courses, residential universities are also charging students from different parts of the country differently. I thought this kind of discrimination was abolished years ago ?


Scottish, Welsh and NI govts subsidise their students education as they generally elect left wing govts. Maybe if there was a PR elected English Parliament or left wing UK govt England would get the same :/

Though I do agree that tuition free university in Scotland should be tuition free for all UK nationals. So to UK nationals in Wales getting the same treatment. I think it would be good for the Scottish and Welsh economies.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by Saoirse:3
Democracy. Scotland and Wales voted for left-wing governments that opposed tuition fees. England voted for centrist to right-wing governments that supported them.


The only reason we have a Conservative government at all is because hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland and Wales voted for the Conservatives (8 Welsh Tory MPs and 13 Scottish Tory MPs). The current unfair tuition fees system in England is being propped up by voters who themselves receive subsidised or free tuition.

Why should students in England have their fees decided by Welsh and Scottish voters? That is effectively what's happened. Not what I'd call democratic.
Original post by Snufkin
The only reason we have a Conservative government at all is because hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland and Wales voted for the Conservatives (8 Welsh Tory MPs and 13 Scottish Tory MPs). The current unfair tuition fees system in England is being propped up by voters who themselves receive subsidised or free tuition.

Why should students in England have their fees decided by Welsh and Scottish voters? That is effectively what's happened. Not what I'd call democratic.


The conservatives won a majority of seats in England.

CON - 296/533
LAB - 227/533

If the election were England only the Conservatives would have won by a fair majority and not a minority govt they currently have due to Scots and Welsh Labour, SNP and Plaid MPs.
Reply 23
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L i b
19
Original post by Saoirse:3
As a Unionist you should bear in mind that if Scotland had no devolution and £9,000 tuition fees, there probably wouldn't be a union any more. It's all about compromise. And in this case the people of Scotland wanted devolution, and the people of the UK as a whole elected a party who was happy to give it to them.


Scotland had tuition fees for a point. It's not some major constitutional issue.

Indeed, there are huge problems with the Scottish system and outcomes (such as the number of students from poorer backgrounds going to university) are worse. That alone does not, to the best of my knowledge, make anyone who otherwise supports it want to abolish the Scottish Parliament.

On another note to the OP: the United States was mentioned previously. The states there have a huge range of powers to do things differently from other states. In reality, its funding structures do vary from state-to-state and grants and scholarships are different.
Original post by ScottishBrexitor
The conservatives won a majority of seats in England.

CON - 296/533
LAB - 227/533

If the election were England only the Conservatives would have won by a fair majority and not a minority govt they currently have due to Scots and Welsh Labour, SNP and Plaid MPs.


You are missing the point. It's no good saying if the election was in England only because it wasn't. England does not have its own national parliament so however many Tory MPs England elects is irrelevant if they cannot command a majority in the UK parliament, which they can't.
(edited 6 years ago)
Maybe you're not aware of this BUUUUT Scotland and has its own parliament!!! (Shocker I know!) The UK isn't just one entity, it's four. You're not being discriminated against, the Scottish parliament decided that university should be free for Scottish people and (some) EU nationals and paid for using Scottish government money NOT the UK government. Unless you count being born in the wrong country as discrimination, you're really not being discriminated against.
Original post by Snufkin
You are missing the point. It's no good saying if the election was in England only because it wasn't. England does not have its own national parliament so however many Tory MPs England elects is irrelevant if they cannot command a majority in the UK parliament, which they can't.


Im not missing the point, the majority of England which dominates the UK Parliament voted to have conservative MPs who support tuition fees of £9k a year, theres no point in blaming a handful of Scottish and Welsh conservative MPs for this who wouldnt even vote on the matter due to conservative policy on EVEL.

Even if you had a Labour/SNP/Plaid/Lib Dem govt then free tuition isnt guranteed to pass due to the EVEL issue as you would need the 39 SNP & Plaid MPs plus all the Scots and Welsh Labour MPs to support it, do you really think England would be happy to have SNP & Plaid MPs vote on EVEL matters?
Original post by ScottishBrexitor
Im not missing the point, the majority of England which dominates the UK Parliament voted to have conservative MPs who support tuition fees of £9k a year, theres no point in blaming a handful of Scottish and Welsh conservative MPs for this who wouldnt even vote on the matter due to conservative policy on EVEL.

Even if you had a Labour/SNP/Plaid/Lib Dem govt then free tuition isnt guranteed to pass due to the EVEL issue as you would need the 39 SNP & Plaid MPs plus all the Scots and Welsh Labour MPs to support it, do you really think England would be happy to have SNP & Plaid MPs vote on EVEL matters?


I'm loathed to repeat myself... for the last time, whether or not English Tory MPs 'dominate' the UK parliament is not relevant, by themselves they cannot command a majority - they are wholly dependent on Scottish and Welsh Tory MPs to prop them up. That is all that matters.
Original post by L i b
Scotland had tuition fees for a point. It's not some major constitutional issue.

Indeed, there are huge problems with the Scottish system and outcomes (such as the number of students from poorer backgrounds going to university) are worse. That alone does not, to the best of my knowledge, make anyone who otherwise supports it want to abolish the Scottish Parliament.

On another note to the OP: the United States was mentioned previously. The states there have a huge range of powers to do things differently from other states. In reality, its funding structures do vary from state-to-state and grants and scholarships are different.


No, but I expect it may well have been enough to turn the result of the independence referendum, especially by galvanising the 16-17 year olds who were allowed to vote. I fully agree the Scots have their problems with higher education too, but politically tuition fees are far more toxic than those kind of more nuanced statistics and consequences.
Original post by Snufkin
I'm loathed to repeat myself... for the last time, whether or not English Tory MPs 'dominate' the UK parliament is not relevant, by themselves they cannot command a majority - they are wholly dependent on Scottish and Welsh Tory MPs to prop them up. That is all that matters.


And if you want tuition fees abolished you need more English Labour MPs as Scottish and Welsh MPs can't vote on English only matters which education and tuition fees comes under. How many ****ing times do I need to repeat myself?
There is no UK Law. The Scottish Government has completely subsided tuition fees for its students and Wales has partially done so. They aren't exempt from tuition fees what's happened is the Scottish Government has promised to pay it's citizen's tuition fees.
I think it's morally wrong but unfortunately it isn't legally wrong.
Reply 31
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L i b
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Original post by Saoirse:3
No, but I expect it may well have been enough to turn the result of the independence referendum, especially by galvanising the 16-17 year olds who were allowed to vote. I fully agree the Scots have their problems with higher education too, but politically tuition fees are far more toxic than those kind of more nuanced statistics and consequences.


Every 16 and 17 year old could have voted for independence and it would only have shifted the outcome modestly. There wasn't actually that many of them. The SNP got away completely with the far more serious proposition of abolishing all student debt, when instead they did sod all and student debt rose considerably.

I am quite pissed off with the tuition fees debate here. I mean, there's barely a peep about our failure to match the existing pay-back threshold in England - which has been long standing and was an SNP manifesto commitment at the last election they did sod-all to take forward. Now the UK Government is sticking it up to £25k and, again, not a peep about it - despite it being one of the most progressive things you can do with student debt.
Reply 32
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L i b
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Original post by Joe_MacDougall
There is no UK Law. The Scottish Government has completely subsided tuition fees for its students and Wales has partially done so. They aren't exempt from tuition fees what's happened is the Scottish Government has promised to pay it's citizen's tuition fees.
I think it's morally wrong but unfortunately it isn't legally wrong.


There certainly is UK law, it's just that this happens to be devolved. As for "its citizens", there is of course no such thing as a Scottish citizen. It's simply based on domicile.
Original post by L i b
There certainly is UK law, it's just that this happens to be devolved. As for "its citizens", there is of course no such thing as a Scottish citizen. It's simply based on domicile.


I mean it as Scotland and England/Wales have their own legal systems. Statue laws are made that are reserved for the entire UK which I guess is "UK Law". Citizen was the wrong term to use I just wasn't sure which term would be correct.
Original post by L i b
There certainly is UK law, it's just that this happens to be devolved. As for "its citizens", there is of course no such thing as a Scottish citizen. It's simply based on domicile.


Thats what I was getting at, We are ALL British citizens, and we should all have the same education opportunities regardless of which bit of Britain you happen to have been born in. This idea of Scots having one system, the Enlish another, and something different for the welsh... Well its all just so last Century. Surely by now the United Kingdom should have that sorted into one national system ?

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