Immigration

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lady Valentine for initiating this debate in which I want to raise one relatively small and specific issue about the way in which the immigration rules inhibit cultural and economic benefits to this country. I refer to exchanges that are designed to last a full academic year between school students in state-maintained secondary schools and their opposite numbers in non-EU countries.

One such scheme is the Rotary Youth Exchange, which has been recognised internationally as one of, if not the, best student exchange programmes in the world. Before 2009, when the tier-based immigration rules were introduced, about 60 school students a year were able to do an exchange as part of this programme. Typically, they are in year 12, or the lower sixth, but now only those wanting to exchange with a student from an EU country are able to participate, because the immigration rules disallow the non-EU school student from coming to the UK for a full academic year. Before 2009, there had been an exemption for exchange students in schools, enabling a 12-month visa to be issued, but this concession has been withdrawn.

It is worth spelling out what the advantages of exchange programmes are, not only for the young people from abroad who come and experience British school life for a year, but for our teenagers, who gain enormously from their leg of the exchange and the opportunity to understand and appreciate other cultures, to learn another language and to live in a host family, while having their safety and welfare overseen by the Rotary.

The Foreign Secretary, in a speech earlier this year, warned that Britain’s place in the world would inevitably decline if it did not embrace an agile and energetic foreign policy that cultivated ties beyond the narrow circle of western powers. What better way of cultivating ties than through young people, particularly if they are guided and assisted on their journey by such a prestigious and well established organisation as Rotary International? The educational and cultural benefits to those young individuals today will turn into competitive and economic benefits to the UK as a whole as they grow up, enter the labour market and drive international business and national reputation.

Three out of the four countries mentioned by the Foreign Secretary—India, Brazil and Turkey—are eager to participate in the Rotary Youth Exchange. The programme is also strong in Taiwan, where UK students can learn the main language and culture of China, the fourth country mentioned by the Foreign Secretary, yet the school students from those countries are precisely the ones who are no longer able to come to the UK to spend an academic year in a state school as an exchange student. Consequently, our school students are denied the opportunity to do likewise.

The Government argue that six months should be the limit on school exchanges, and that is the extent to which tier 4 of the points-based system will go. It is argued that, beyond six months, it counts as replacement education for non-EU nationals, which should not be provided at the taxpayer’s expense, but that is somewhat illogical, given that exactly the same costs are incurred for EU children on the same scheme. Furthermore, given that, by definition, the scheme is reciprocal, for each foreign student here one from the UK is placed abroad. In any case, there is a strong argument for saying that both the short-term and long-term benefits significantly outweigh the immediate costs, in a global environment where intercultural understanding and co-operation, particularly at a personal level, are so vital in fostering better relationships.

Given that before 2009 there was no problem or issue with granting 12-month visas to non-EU school students coming in on exchanges, I ask the Minister to accept that the current situation is in fact an unintended and unforeseen consequence of the points-based system. It seems to me that the Department for Education’s argument about six months being adequate is something of a post hoc rationalisation of a situation that it was not expecting and certainly had not been responsible for creating. Will the Minister be good enough to undertake to correct that anomaly and amend the relevant immigration rule, and perhaps consider granting highly trusted status to the Rotary organisation, so that children aged under 18 from schools in non-EU countries are once again able to participate in the full academic year youth exchange with state schools in the UK?