ON almost any reading, the proposal by Oxford City Council to allow university staff the status of “keyworkers” to qualify for affordable housing is ridiculous.

The keyworker scheme was set up to ensure that a town or city would always be able to accommodate those people whose jobs are vital to the running of public services.

The police force must have its officers on the beat, the hospital must have its nurses and the schools must have their teachers.

Without those people — driven away because the cost of housing in the private market is too high compared to their wages — public services would fail.

We do not seek to say that staff at either of Oxford’s universities do not fulfil important roles.

But if either institution lost staff it would not impact on the proper provision of Oxford’s public services.

The city council bases this plan on the fact that 19 per cent of the city’s workforce are in higher education.

That may be true but if you continue that argument, BMW is equally important to the city.

Should all the workers at Cowley qualify as keyworkers too?

Another important point is that if the council does adopt university staff as keyworkers, then the keyworker scheme will be effectively subsidising the universities as employers.

They are, essentially, private organisations.

As such they should pay their staff the proper rate that allows them to find housing locally with an appropriate standard of living, or face the prospect of those workers going elsewhere, as any other company does. It is not for the keyworker scheme to allow a university (or any private company) to scrimp on paying a decent wage to staff.

The intention may have been motivated by goodwill but this plan must be consigned to the bin.