Student Visas

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 16th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point from his huge experience and from the fact that there are two excellent universities in Oxford and I certainly agree with him.

Let me move on to the problems that have been created by the speed of implementation. When the Home Secretary was announcing the revised tier 4 arrangements in March, she said:

“We recognise the need to implement these changes in a staged manner that minimises disruption to education providers and students.” —[Official Report, 22 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 858.]

We all know, I think, that that is not happening. The new requirements took effect on 21 April at an advanced stage of the university’s admission cycle and at a point where a number of offers had been made and, crucially, had been accepted. In Sheffield, our two universities and Sheffield international college had already made more than 20,500 offers to prospective students for degree-level courses and currently have 1,300 offer holders and applicants for English language programmes. All those offers have to be revisited as applicants may now no longer meet the UKBA’s new subset score requirements. The colleges must now notify students who have accepted offers and who, therefore, have a legally binding contract with them that they must meet new conditions. They are deeply concerned about the legal ramifications of such a change and the damage that could be done to their reputation. They have to alter the terms of the offers that have already been accepted. Could that not be avoided by having transitional arrangements in place to enable students to be admitted in this new academic year on the terms on which offers have been made?

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

Let me clarify this matter. If the certificate of acceptance was issued before the new rules came in, the new rules do not apply. There is no retrospection in this. Before this hare is set running, let me stop it because it is simply not true.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the Minister for his intervention, but I have to say that that is certainly not clear to our universities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It goes back to the fact that the Government are not achieving the Home Secretary’s desired intent, which is to ensure that these changes are introduced in a non-disruptive way.

I return to the point that the Minister made. Clearly, there is confusion within our universities, so it might be helpful if he undertook to liaise with Universities UK to put out a statement saying that all offers made will be honoured without the requirement to meet the new visa regulations—if that is what he said.

[Damian Green]

If an unconditional offer was made and accepted, the certificate of acceptance would have been assigned before 21 April and that remains valid for six months and therefore for the coming academic year. I met Universities UK and it was as a result of our discussions that the new guidance was put on the website. I am trying hard to meet the needs of both universities and hon. Members in this debate. To those who ask for flexibility and for me to talk to Universities UK, I can say that that is exactly what I have been doing. As a result of that, we have now produced new guidance, and I hope that hon. Members are satisfied with it.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the Minister for that contribution, but there is still some need for clarity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) has indicated, there is still a great deal of uncertainty. A lot of activity is currently under way in our universities to re-verify the offers that have been made.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

I echo the remarks of the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) about the thoughtful and passionate nature of the debate. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) introduced this important debate in a thoughtful way.

I will follow the good examples of my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), the former Home Secretary, in saying that there are clearly macro and micro aspects to this and it is important that we conduct the debate about student visas and tier 4 within the overall context of the Government’s immigration policy.

I should say at the outset that Britain is quite rightly internationally renowned for its top-quality education institutions. Many hon. Members have rightly made that point. The students who choose to study here from across the globe bring numerous cultural, social and economic benefits to the UK and to their own countries when they return. We all acknowledge that and it is certainly acknowledged across Government.

We must recognise that the student visa system had become a broken instrument. It has failed to control immigration and, in many cases, to protect legitimate students—a point that the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made. He said that severe damage has been caused. He said that people come here honestly hoping to study and then find that they have been scammed. Bogus colleges are scamming not just the British immigration system but the students who come here.

Student immigration has more than trebled in the past 10 years and is now far larger than the other two main routes of immigration—the work route and the family route. Too many of the people who come here calling themselves students have a primary motivation of working here, and not of receiving a high-quality education. Too many institutions are providing a service that is not about education but immigration. Addressing that issue is at the heart of what we are seeking to do. Many Members from all parties have agreed that it is worth driving out that abuse.

There are endless examples of institutions and “students” working the system to get round language requirements and rights to work, and to bring in dependants. That is not just a small problem; too many colleges provide minimal or no tuition or classroom study. We have students barely able to hold a conversation in English turning up to “study” degree-level courses.

Last year, both Governments—the Labour Government and the coalition Government—were in power. So I hope that I will respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Bradford South about being non-partisan by saying that in 2010 tier 4 visas represented 14% of visas that were issued, but tier 4 visa-holders were responsible for 41% of refusals at ports, in other words actually being turned down by immigration officers. The equivalent figures for tiers 1, 2 and 5 visa-holders were all less than 1%.

We want genuine students coming to Britain to attend courses of high educational value at legitimate and responsible institutions. We need to maintain our international reputation for providing top-quality education, and we want the very best students to stay on in the UK to complete their studies. That is exactly what our proposals are designed to deliver and that is why the Home Secretary announced a comprehensive programme of reform on 22 March. I want to set out what those changes mean in practice and how they will contribute to meeting our wider objective of reducing net migration to the tens of thousands. I also want to address the many specific points made by individual Members during the debate. I will try to deal with them all in the next few minutes.

Many contributors to the debate have talked about flexibility, including the hon. Member for Sheffield Central. Indeed, to minimise disruption to education providers and students, we are implementing the changes in three stages. The rules for the first stage came into effect on 21 April. Last Monday—13 June—we laid the second set of changes to the rules before Parliament. They will come into effect on 4 July. We will complete our changes by the end of 2012.

We continue to have extensive dialogue with the sector about the changes that we are making. I can assure right hon. and hon. Members who are concerned about that that there are numerous and constant contacts at official level and, where necessary, between myself and Universities UK and selected vice-chancellors about these changes, because we want to introduce them in the most practical way possible.

I want to respond to a specific point that was made about the timing of the changes. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) read out the letter from the vice-chancellor of a university in his constituency asking if all the changes could be delayed for a year. I should say that when we began to have discussions on them last autumn, we were urged by the universities themselves to get on with them, because we all know that the longer there is any uncertainty in a system, the more people are wary of that system. Various Members have said that the uncertainty that exists is deterring people from making applications and so on. If we allow the uncertainty to continue for another year, I suspect that the results would be worse. So that was the wise advice that I received from the universities last autumn.

I must repeat the basic point that there are so many abuses of the system that we need radical reform. Many colleges seem happy to accept students who do not even meet their own admissions criteria and who speak very little English. In one college, we found that there were two lecturers for 940 students. In another, we found that students were attending classes for just one day a month and working excessive hours for the rest of the time. UK Border Agency enforcement teams recently picked up students who were supposed to be studying at a college in London, but were actually living and working in west Wales; indeed, every student whom we found from that college was doing that.

We are targeting the least compliant students and institutions, and of course that is what we should do. For too long, institutions in parts of the privately funded education sector have been essentially unregulated, yet all the evidence suggests that those institutions pose the biggest risk to immigration control. In a sample of tier 4 students studying at private institutions about which the UKBA had concerns, up to 26% could not be accounted for.

The UKBA has revoked the sponsorship licences of 64 colleges. I hope that that meets the reasonable request of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, that the inspection regime should be robust. He said that the UKBA used to phone up institutions in advance to say that its inspectors were coming. As is evident from the number of licences that have been revoked, the enforcement regime is getting better.

I want to turn to the current points-based system. Again in the spirit of non-partisanship, I must say that this Government did not arrive and tear up that system. We said that we could build on it and we accepted the point of having objective ways of measuring who comes to the UK, and that is what we are seeking to do. Under that objective system, a sponsor assesses the intentions and ability of the student; UKBA staff no longer have the power to refuse a migrant entry to the UK on those grounds. We therefore need to make absolutely sure that sponsors are exercising their powers responsibly, and that is one of the things that these reforms are designed to achieve.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Damian Green]

I will give way once; I suspect that I will not get through my speech if I give way to all the Members who wish to intervene.

[Mr Jackson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. On the points-based system, given that the overall purpose of immigration policy is to reduce net migration, can he confirm that after the introduction of the points-based system in 2007, arrivals of students, dependants and student visitors increased from 370,000 in 2007 to 489,000 by 2009?

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. Indeed, the numbers were still rising right up until last year. We now have the figures up to the summer of last year and the numbers were still rising at that point. As I was saying, we are building on the points-based system, but we are precisely introducing limits and precisely driving out abuse in the student system. That is why we will move on to other systems, so that we can get the numbers down. The points-based system is not enough on its own, but it is a platform on which we can build.

The Home Secretary announced new reforms that mean that all sponsors must now be vetted by one of the approved inspectorates and all of them must attain the status of highly trusted sponsors. In line with that commitment, we announced earlier this week that the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Independent Schools Inspectorate would extend their activities to cover privately funded providers. Sponsors must meet our immigration requirements and high standards of educational provision. Institutions that do not meet those requirements are now subject to a limit on the number of students that they can bring in. To stay on the sponsor register in the longer term, they must achieve highly trusted sponsor status no later than April 2012 and gain accreditation by the relevant agency by the end of 2012. The imposition of a limit responds to the urgent need to tackle abuse, allows sponsors time to adjust to the new system and prevents surges in applications from high-risk sectors. We are well on track to delivering a sponsorship system that the public can trust.

We are also raising the bar on entry requirements. All students coming to study degree-level courses must now be able to speak English at an upper intermediate level and others will have to speak English at an intermediate level. If students cannot answer basic questions in English about their course, UKBA officers will refuse them entry at the border. That was another point legitimately made by the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. We are now bringing back the power for immigration officers at the border to recognise that someone is obviously, indeed blatantly, incapable of fulfilling the requirements of their visa.

In recognition of our trust in universities, we are flexible about the methods that they use to assess a student’s level of English. That brings me on to a specific point that was made by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central. Let me start by discussing what is, if you like, the biggest transitional issue. That is the English language requirement, which he raised in his introductory speech.

The appropriate level of English for those coming to study at level 6 and above is an upper intermediate level across each of the four disciplines: reading; writing; speaking; and listening. That is level B2 on the common European framework of language. A lower level—B1—is the appropriate level for lower courses, including the pathways courses that many Members have mentioned. Those are courses taken by people coming in who do not have the appropriate level of English but who want to take an English language course in the UK on their way to taking a full university course here. So we have set a lower level of English as a requirement for those students.

In order to get a visa, those outside universities will have to present a test certificate from an independent test provider proving that they have attained the required level. As another flexibility that we have introduced, universities will be able to vouch for a student’s ability if they are coming to study at degree level or above. Indeed, there might be the odd student who cannot meet the requirements for all four disciplines but is so exceptional that we will allow individual requests by university academic registrars.

A number of Members have talked about English language schools. People who want to come to the UK to study lower-level English can do so for up to 11 months through the student visitor route. We introduced that concession after discussions with the English language colleges last autumn, and the colleges have welcomed it.

On the confirmations of acceptance for studies and the visas, the requirements for an offer of a place at a university are separate from the requirements under the immigration rules. Universities could, and should, have assigned a confirmation of acceptance for studies to people who held unconditional offers before 21 April. Someone with a conditional offer has, of course, not yet satisfied the university’s own academic entry requirements. The immigration system and its requirements have always been separate from the academic entry requirements, and it is important not to confuse the two. For instance, any Government would refuse a student entry if their background indicated that a potential harm would be posed to the UK, even if a university had given an unconditional offer of a place.

It was mentioned that there are difficulties relating to the English language tests. The UKBA ran a procurement exercise and expanded the list of English test providers to ensure that there was significant capacity, and we are in regular contact with each of the approved test providers, which have demonstrated flexibility in expanding test centre capacity where there is demand. If there are blockages, we are trying hard to remove them.

There has been much inevitable discussion about the impact assessment, and various figures have been cited. I wish to put on the record that the net cost is said to be £2.4 billion. The £3.6 billion is the gross cost, but there will also be £1.1 billion of benefits. The truth about the impact assessment process is that it is in its infancy and is not yet satisfactory. I have spoken to the economists who do the assessments and they agree that the process needs to improve. I do not want to go into the economic theology of what works and what does not work because it is late on a Thursday afternoon, but I shall give one very practical example. The way in which the assessments are carried out requires us to assume that there is a zero displacement effect of students taking jobs on the local labour market. In other words, if a foreign student is doing a job and then leaves, 100% of that economic activity is assumed to be lost. In practical terms, however, it is likely that that person will be replaced by a British student or someone else. Clearly, therefore, the assessments are not satisfactory, and we have asked the Migration Advisory Committee, which is independent of Government, to look at the process over the summer.

The definition of immigration is beginning to vex us, and I am half-tempted to spend a long time discussing whether students should somehow be removed from the definition altogether. There is clearly an academic argument to be had, but I will just make the underlying point that although it would be fantastically convenient for the Minister for Immigration suddenly to discover that hundreds of thousands of people who were regarded as immigrants yesterday would not be regarded as immigrants tomorrow—I would hit my targets with no effort at all—that is not realistic, and I do not think that the public would accept it. In terms of confidence, the point is very well made that immigration statistics are imperfect, particularly regarding counting people in and out, and that is why we have re-let the e-Borders contract. Over the next few years we will develop a much greater ability to count people out as well as in, but it seems sensible to stick to the internationally agreed measurements we have always had, which are used by other countries, rather than apparently try to redefine our way out of what is a serious and difficult political issue.

The other big subject that many Members have mentioned is post-study work, and I am afraid that I will have to agree to differ with the hon. Member for Sheffield Central. The students’ primary motivation should be to study, not to work. The ability to work after finishing a course or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) said, while doing a course, should not be a significant part of the motivation of someone coming here on a student visa. If people want to come here to work, there are work routes, and I do not want them to deceive either us or themselves by saying, “I’m here as a student but what really matters to me—the motivating force—is that I can either work during the course or stay for a couple of years afterwards.” It is simply not the case that everyone who does that gets a graduate-level job. In one cohort that we looked at, of those who were hanging around for the allowed two years after finishing their degrees, about 20% were unemployed, and 50% of those who were employed were in unskilled jobs and not making use of their studies.

[Tony Lloyd]

Does the Minister not recognise that there are some people who would benefit as part of the total package of education plus skills training but who might not qualify under the current post-study work route structure?

[Damian Green]

No. The problem is that the post-study work route has been abused as much as it has been legitimately used. We are not closing down that route altogether; we are specifically saying, “If you can get a graduate-level job, you can stay.” That seems very reasonable—[Hon. Members: “It is about the salary”]. I thank Members for that. Let me talk about the £20,000 salary that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central suggested was somehow wrong. I have to say, in the gentle spirit of non-partisanship in which I am making this speech, that the £20,000 minimum salary threshold for tier 2 was set by the previous Government, following a recommendation by the Migration Advisory Committee in August 2009. At that time, the tier 2 skill threshold was jobs at national vocational qualification level 3, and this Government have now raised that threshold to jobs at NVQ level 4, at which level the case for a salary threshold of at least £20,000 becomes even more compelling.

[Paul Blomfield]

What the previous Government surely had in mind when they set that threshold was not post-study work but the conventional application for tier 2.

[Damian Green]

It was set as a graduate-level salary, and it still is. We have kept that threshold. We have not inflation-linked it, and we have increased the skill level, so, if anything, there is a stronger case for it now.

I have a fascinating answer about accountancy qualifications for the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, but given that there are only three minutes to go I hope that he can hold his interest on that topic and bear to have my reply in writing.

In response to a point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, it is true that initially universities were automatically granted highly trusted sponsor status, but they were all required to apply for the status by the end of June 2010. All applications were considered against the published criteria. I was puzzled that someone said they were confused about the criteria, because they were published. Universities retained highly trusted sponsor status after June 2010 only if they had met all the criteria.

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) made a point about independent schools. Independent schools have been afforded greater flexibility simply because of their extremely low levels of non-compliance. They have earned that privilege because they are practically 100% compliant. The requirement for a secure English language test applies to all users of tier 4 general. Independent schools largely use the tier 4 child route, for which there is no English language requirement. That route is also available to sixth-form colleges that recruit 16 and 17 year olds.

There was a question about the list of financial institutions, and I can say that that list will be available on the UKBA website shortly. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) asked about quotas, and I am happy to assure her that there are no quotas for UKBA officials to grant or refuse applications.

Once all the rules have been implemented, I expect the reforms to reduce the number of student visas by about 70,000 a year, and I estimate that at the end of this Parliament there will be about 260,000 fewer student visas and about 100,000 fewer dependants’ visas. Members have raised many practical issues that I have not had time to address, but I will take them away and think about them hard, particularly the individual cases mentioned by the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) .

I am of course aware of the importance of international students for British educational institutions and for the UK economy, but I believe that the measures strike the necessary balance.