I don't have any sympathy for the concept of reduced fees. If students want to pay less fees, they should go to a lesser institution that charges less.
£9,250 is already a reduced fee and we are operating on a shoestring and if sounds too much, then their parents shouldn't have voted Tories (and then voted them again)... so I have zero sympathy.
As for deferring... yes, you can defer, and what are you going to do for 12 months? Playstation? Netflix? In the meantime losing skills and then entering University the following year less prepared and at risk of failing or graduating with less.
I'd rather graduate with a 2.1 with an "experimental first year" than one year later, with a 2.2 because I waited for things to go back to normal.
I think deferring is just daft and I suspect the number of UK students deferring will be very small.
Asian students will look to stay in their Country, that's a given... provided they can, bear in mind we get the wealthy ones, not necessarily the smart ones, often they come over here because they can't get a place in a good University over there.