What do Tories know about state education?

Sir, – In answer to Jill Stephenson’s letter (June 16) criticising the Scottish Government’s

handling of education,

I would just say that, when we in Scotland have full control over our own affairs, including finances, I am confident that her concerns will be dealt with.

But I would like to raise a related matter on education – why is it that the current Westminster Government, and indeed every Conservative government, is stuffed full of people who have been educated outwith the state system, in private educational establishments from which the vast majority of children are excluded by financial barriers?

Some 64% of Prime Minister Johnson’s first Cabinet in July 2019 had been educated privately, with Oxford and Cambridge graduates making up 45%, not to mention only 24% women, and 18% black and ethnic minorities.

These are shocking figures for a modern, liberal democracy in the 21st Century – only 7% of children attend what we in Scotland would describe as a private school, yet two-thirds of the people who govern the UK have been educated in just such a place.

And what’s even more shocking is that, of the 64% who were educated privately, almost half attended either Oxford or Cambridge, probably old chums of the prime minister.

When we think of “public” schools, a misnomer if ever there was one, we don’t generally think of girls, and this is reflected in there only being one-in-four women in the new Cabinet.

Another answer to Ms Stephenson’s complaint about education generally might be that those who have overall control of it in the UK often have no personal investment in the system because their children do not use it.

Les Mackay. Carmichael Gardens, Dundee.