Universities Scotland has responded to a consultation by the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Constitution Committee on the UK Internal Market Bill. The Committee is scrutinising the Bill to determine its impact on the Devolution Settlement and how the Internal Market will operate in practice.

Given the remit of our organisation, we limit our response to aspects of the Bill that directly affect Scotland’s higher education sector. That includes seeking clarity on the ability of the Scottish Parliament to set its own policy on tuition fees and whether higher education is considered a “public authority” for the purposes of the Bill.

Our submission also highlights the power to provide financial assistance for international exchange. We believe this is a potentially useful provision to ensure that the UK has the means to develop and fund a UK-wide student mobility successor scheme to Erasmus in the event of a no-deal Brexit or in the event that association with Erasmus+ as a non-member state is not part of a negotiated deal between the UK and the EU.

Read our full submission here.