Asylum Seekers
Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point about the need for care. One reason why you see concentrations of certain nationalities in certain places is that communities tend to become established, and it is natural for asylum seekers to go and join their own community in the UK.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
My Lords, perhaps I may return to the issue of gender. The running rate of 50 per cent of women succeeding in appeals, which is almost double that of men, is suggestive that there is poor decision-making and a culture of disbelief at the first instance in relation to women. Is that therefore not a signal, first, that there is poor training and, secondly, that there should be legal representation when the women are first interrogated and questioned because they are having to deal with sensitive matters such as sexual violence?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I largely agree with the noble Baroness. The problem is that the matters that the applicant has to explain to the UKBA officers are extremely sensitive and the applicant has not yet acquired confidence in the machinery of our state because the machinery of their home state has totally failed.
Noble Lords
Student Visas
Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
The noble Baroness makes a couple of important points. The first was about measuring the numbers. The international passenger survey is run by the Office for National Statistics for a number of purposes. One of the main aims is to provide information on the number of migrants entering and leaving the UK. The IPS is the foundation for the ONS figures on long-term international migration, and the survey includes adjustments to take account of migration to and from Northern Ireland from 2008 onwards as well as for asylum seekers and people whose length of stay changes from their original intentions. The ONS figures on net migration are the best available measure, have been on a consistent definition since 1991, are produced in accordance with ONS codes of practice, and are used widely across government. The ONS uses a long-standing UN standard definition of a migrant as someone who enters or leaves the UK for more than a year—and that obviously includes students.
The noble Baroness also asked me about post-study work. We listened to what we were told during the consultation and have changed the policy relating to work requirements. There will be no change for students studying at universities: they can work a limit of 20 hours per week during term time, but they can work full time in the vacation and will not have an on-campus restriction. Students at FE colleges will be allowed to work 10 hours a week in term time, and full time in vacation. All other students will have no permission to work. Regarding employers and post-study work, the most important issue is that they should offer graduate-calibre work—most universities in their glossy prospectuses do not state that post-study work will involve work in a burger bar.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
My Lords, I also thank the noble Earl for his Statement. I endorse what has been said by others. Visiting students add so much to the life of Britain, and students who are born here benefit from the enrichment of being with students from other cultures and other parts of the world. We also make long-term friendships. When I was chair of the British Council and I travelled abroad, it was most wonderful to meet government Ministers and business partners among people who had had such a good experience here that they remained warm in their feelings about Britain. You cannot put a price on that. I hope that we do not in any way discourage many people from coming here to study.
I am president of SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. This issue is a source of concern to us because we are an arts and humanities university. We train people in very unusual languages, and many of those students go into the Diplomatic Service. The languages include Japanese, Chinese, and those of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. I remind this House of the impact in terms of income that the shift in policy on higher education will mean for an institution such as ours, and of the impact of that loss of income if the changes are made.
Perhaps I may highlight a number of problems. The visa system already creates problems for us—a feeling that is probably shared by many of the university chancellors who sit in this House. Students often cannot get here for the start of a term because the visa process takes such a long time, and that is because the process has become so convoluted. My first question for the noble Earl is: will there be a fast-track system for visa applications for those who are coming to the well established universities in this country? Will there be a method that somehow does not involve the current delays and investigations? Sometimes students cannot start their degree courses at the appropriate time, and they lose out.
Secondly—and I know that this is true of other universities—students who do not speak English come to us at SOAS from places such as Japan and China. They are incredibly bright and they learn the language very quickly. Not allowing anyone to come without having our language is a problem. We also run pre-entry courses for people to learn English and to acclimatise before going to other universities. Will we be prevented from offering those kinds of courses under this new regime?
Earl Attlee
The noble Baroness said that visiting students add so much. In effect, she talked about soft power and said that you cannot put a price on that. In your Lordships’ House, I have for a long time been interested in, and have spoken about, defence. The noble Baroness could not be more right. She could not overemphasise the importance of visiting students. She also mentioned the important issue of loss of income for institutions. However, if students are genuine, there should not be a loss of income. She talked about entry clearance for students at universities. We have made some simplifications for students coming here to study at university. It will be easier for them, for instance, to show that they have the resources to support themselves. However, it will be much more difficult for those students to go to a private FE college. Visas for university courses are often prioritised at posts overseas, but we advise applicants to apply in good time.
Visas: Points-based System
Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for giving us the opportunity to debate the points-based visa system, which was introduced in November 2008 by the previous Government. I was unhappy about it then and I remain unhappy about it. Like everyone else who has spoken, I believe that it operates to the detriment of the arts world, our international relations, our relations with business and the strengthening of our economy. It does not make sense as currently designed.
As many know, I have spent time as the chair of the British Council. I have also chaired other arts organisations, such as the London International Festival of Theatre. I have seen at close quarters the great enrichment of our society, our creative people and our academics that comes from having the opportunity to meet and mix with artists from abroad and the great cross-fertilisation that comes about through those connections. Such contact strengthens our relations around the world and greatly enhances our creative environment here.
I shall speak first about the education world, because I am the president of the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the detriment that we experience as a result of the system. I shall speak also about the business of the visa system as a whole.
We are about to launch yet another assault on our engagement with the world by reducing substantially the proportion of international students coming to Britain. In doing so, we forget the huge and long-term benefits that come from our relationships with them. Approximately 79 per cent of students who come to this country return within five years. If we add another year to that statistic, we see that the proportion rises to 85 per cent. The vast majority go home and those who remain do so by and large as professionals who set up their own businesses and add to the enrichment of our society. Those students also bring in £5.3 billion-worth of revenue. At a time when our universities are being hit, that is very important.
The enrichment that I wish to talk about has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Parekh. It concerns the ways in which international academics come to us. Because of the skills and new knowledge that they bring with them, our own academics working with them are able to provide a plethora of courses. That would not be possible without those international academics spending time here. However, increasingly they are being put off by the way in which they are treated by bureaucracy and the difficulties involved in bringing with them their families, their partners, their spouses and their children. The complex nature of our immigration system is discouraging that important element of what is on offer in our universities.
On the problems that have been raised within SOAS, we run important pre-degree programmes for students who come from education systems around the world that are different from ours. It is therefore difficult for some of them to be assessed or to take on a particular university degree, not because of their lack of ability but simply because their own education systems are so different. We provide pre-university preparation for international students, who then go on to become students in universities in the UK. Those in-house foundation courses are provided for undergraduates and postgraduates to enable them to take on deeper educational opportunities. The programmes attract large numbers of bright students, but the system for visas is now acting as a serious detriment to their coming to Britain.
On the English language test—again, this was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Parekh—most students coming to Britain acquire the English language very quickly. To make the demand that we make for other economic immigrants—that they are able to speak English before they come—often works as a disadvantage for those coming to pre-courses or as students. These people are incredibly intelligent and acquire the English language very quickly, but our system of immigration does not recognise that. There has to be a criticism of the culture within the Home Office around this because the system does not recognise that there is a difference between students and economic migrants. Limiting the entitlement of students to work makes the UK a less attractive place in which to study.
There is a madness in all this and the system needs to be looked at holistically. We are in a very competitive situation in the offers that we make to students around the world and we are now tightening the entry requirements in such a way that many students will not choose Britain as their preferred place to come. I would like the whole system as it is currently operating to be looked at again. We are sending out messages to potential students that they are not welcome here.
There has been an inheritance of the system that was in existence, but the efforts now will deepen a system that is not working. I say to noble Lords on the government Benches that the system is ripe for reappraisal and that we should look at the workings of the points-based system to see whether it can be improved.
On a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, Goldsmith’s, one of the really fine art schools in our country, has written to organisations complaining that it needs international artists to come and be part of the programmes that it makes and offers for its art students and that increasingly it is becoming impossible to do that. That experience is shared by other schools around the country. The example given was that of Abbas Kiarostami, a film director renowned and admired throughout the world, who gives us links with a country with which we have troubled relations. He was coming to direct an opera at English National Opera. He found it impossible to get over the hurdles and felt it insulting to be expected to go through the processes that were described by the noble Earl.
I think that revisiting this system is timely. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for introducing this debate and other noble Lords who have spoken. It is truly a source of scandal that we cannot invite people into our country who are enhancing everything that we are seeking to do in the arts, education, business and the economy. Last night, I met a senior executive of Google. One of the things that he immediately raised with me was the problem that it is having in getting skilled people into this country to work. If we are upsetting a company such as Google, we are really in trouble.