As news leaked that the government was planning to introduce higher fees and restrict access to student support for EU students, we were treated in parliament to a fine display of hand-wringing from supporters of this change. Apparently it would be morally indefensible, post-Brexit, to offer preferential terms to EU nationals wishing to study here, when compared with those from developing countries.

Up popped Jacob Rees-Mogg, proposing it would be better to spend “limited hard-pressed taxpayers’ fund … on the poorest countries in the world … not on some of the richest”. Last year Rees-Mogg delivered a petition to Downing Street demanding that the foreign aid budget be cut.

Smita Jamdar

His Conservative colleague Suella Braverman lamented that preferential fee treatment for EU students would be “inherently unfair and discriminatory”, although she had previously voted to support stricter asylum and immigration controls that many would also regard as unfair and discriminatory.

Even the universities minister, Chris Skidmore, chimed in. “We want students from India and the Asean – Association of Southeast Asian Nations – countries who want to come to study, but cannot at the present time, to have the opportunity to do so. Why should European students be given a disproportionate opportunity?”

This sudden concern to treat international students fairly does not withstand scrutiny. If there were a genuine will to help students from further afield, we would be seeing a lot more urgency in resolving, for example, the plight of those affected by the aftermath of the ETS testing scandal in which thousands of students were unjustly accused of cheating in an English language test and more than 1,000 forcibly removed from the UK.

I was peripherally involved in some of these cases at the time, through advising universities whose students were deported or not allowed to return to this country, in many cases without anything even approximating due process or natural justice. This was shameful treatment.

And yet here we are, years later, still waiting for a further review to tell us what should be clear beyond all doubt: there have been grave miscarriages of justice, people’s lives have been ruined and we should be offering redress and compensation. A country that truly cared about international students would be demanding nothing less. Instead, it appears that these students are, extraordinarily, still being detained and forcibly removed.

There is no basis to credibly claim that the current student immigration system helps “the poorest countries in the world”. High fees and the requirement to have sufficient funds for maintenance for nine months (at an arbitrarily fixed rate, irrespective of actual cost), and very limited rights to post-study work, make it unaffordable for all but the richest in developing countries. Raising the fee levels for EU students doesn’t make life any easier for a poor applicant from Nigeria.

On the other hand, free movement and lower tuition fees and loans make study in the UK a possibility for the less well-off in the EU. If there were genuine concern about widening international access and participation, we would extend this support, not cut it.

One answer to Skidmore’s question as to why EU students should benefit from differential fees can be found in the Higher Education Commission’s recent inquiry on international education. It heard that there are a number of courses, particularly in the sciences, that are viable only because of EU students. Reducing EU student numbers will curtail the range of education and training options available to UK students. For this reason, the HEC recommended continuing to charge EU students home fees for 2020 and beyond.

The second reason is that in any future relationship with the EU we will want to encourage cross-border study for our own students – so why send such a dreadfully unwelcoming message at this stage?

There is, in fact, no reason in equity, in law, or in national self-interest that requires the government to take the step it is proposing. It is simply another signal that the UK does not value its global education market.

Smita Jamdar is head of education at the law firm Shakespeare Martineau