Leaving EU would protect free university tuition, says Tom Harris, who criticised the policy last year

Leaving the EU would protect free university tuition, former Labour MP Tom Harris has claimed.

This is despite the fact the new director of the Vote Leave campaign in Scotland last year attacked the policy while he was still MP for Glasgow South.

Speaking at the launch of the Scottish Vote Leave campaign, Harris said Scottish students face increasing pressure for university places because free places are also given to EU citizens.

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“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “EU law prevents universities from distinguishing between Scottish and EU students. EU students compete directly for the same places as Scottish students, meaning Scottish students often end up missing out on funded places at our universities,” he said.

After leaving the EU, Scottish Universities could then charge fees to EU applicants, he added, “thereby securing free university tuition for Scottish students in the long term”.

However, writing for the blog Labour Hame last February, Harris said: “As a way of encouraging the very poorest Scottish students into university, it has proved even less effective than the ConDem government’s tuition fees policy. The percentage of deprived children in England who now apply for university has gone up to 22; in Scotland that figure is a scandalous 16 per cent.

“How is it that a policy described by some as ‘progressive’ has led directly to a situation where a working class kid in England, Wales or Northern Ireland has a better chance of going to university than one in Scotland?”

Yesterday Harris also said a Brexit would make the Scottish Parliament more powerful because policy areas formally designated to the EU would automatically be devolved.

He was joined by former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars, who is also campaigning for a vote to leave the EU.