Nicola Sturgeon
John Swinney makes pledge but says Westminster has not yet guaranteed visas for full duration of university courses
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, has promised that EU students will still receive free tuition at Scottish universities after Brexit, at a potential cost of £300m.
Swinney matched a similar pledge from the universities minister at Westminster, Jo Johnson, who said this week that EU students arriving in autumn 2017 would be allowed to stay at English universities for the duration of their courses, and be eligible for loans and grants.
But Swinney, who is also Scotland’s education secretary, said UK ministers had not yet guaranteed that EU students would be granted visas to allow them to stay for the full duration of their courses, which can last up to five years.
Nicola Sturgeon tells EU nationals: ‘You are not bargaining chips’
He said EU students should also have access to post-study work visas. That policy was scrapped by the previous Tory-Lib Dem coalition in London but is being reassessed in a new pilot project for short-term post-study visas at a handful of English universities.
There is uncertainty over the future of EU students after Amber Rudd, the home secretary, outlined plans for two-tier systems for less prestigious universities and courses. Other UK ministers have suggested that the rights of EU citizens after Brexit would depend on how UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU were treated.
“They are not cards to be played,” Swinney told the Scottish National party’s annual conference in Glasgow. “They are human beings. To use them as negotiating chips is obscene and we will have no part of it.”
The conference had already voted to devolve control over post-study work visas to the Scottish parliament after the controversy over the deportation threat facing an Australian family, the Brains, who came to Scotland in 2011 on a post-study visa that was withdrawn soon after they arrived.
Swinney has been under mounting pressure from universities, teaching unions and the National Union of Students to guarantee that EU students would get free places at Scottish universities. That pressure intensified after Johnson’s announcement on Monday.
The policy, which is required under EU law because Scottish residents get free places, costs the Scottish government about £75m a year.