Immigration: Students

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to removing international students from the net migration figures by including them as non-immigrant admissions, as is done in the United States.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)]

My Lords, in introducing this short debate I declare two interests: I am an honorary fellow of Birkbeck College and I am the treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary University Group. I should also say that I am looking forward enormously to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, whose very distinguished record in science, technology and universities precedes her.

Net migration figures into the United Kingdom quite rightly reflect the flow of all those who come into the United Kingdom within a certain period of time—usually a year—minus the flow of those who leave. The Office for National Statistics, which is responsible for compiling these figures, uses the UN definition of “migrant”, which includes all people who move into the country for a period of 12 months or more, regardless of the purpose or permanence of their stay. On that basis, all students coming to study in the UK for more than one year are counted as immigrants. Likewise, all those who leave at the end of their studies are counted as emigrants.

International students are of very considerable benefit to the United Kingdom. They pay fees for their university tuition and accommodation, and UUK reckons that, together with off-campus spending, each student brings something like £26,000 a year to the United Kingdom economy. Indeed, the Government reckon that export earnings from overseas students amount to currently something like £25 billion, and the Autumn Statement suggested an ambition that this should grow by 20% to £30 billion by 2020.

There are also longer-term benefits. For example, a recent study from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills found that more than 80% of the students who had studied here retained personal and professional links and had an increased appreciation for, and trust of, the United Kingdom. In other words, that soft power is very important as well as the actual money that they bring in. For all these reasons, it is very much to the UK’s advantage to encourage as many international students as possible to come to this country.

Problems, however, arise on two scores. First, in so far as the number of students coming to this country from overseas is increasing, we would expect that over that period more would come in than would leave, and that this would be reflected as a rise in net migration. Indeed, given the 20% increase in non-EU students projected in the Autumn Statement, the estimates written into the detailed documents accompanying the Statement projected an increase of 7% in student numbers for 2016-17 and 2017-18. This would amount to an extra 20,000 students each year, adding potentially an extra 40,000 to the net migration figures over these two years.

This, in itself, would not matter, if the Government had not at the same time set themselves a target for reducing net migration to below 100,000 from its current total of more than 300,000. In pursuit of this target, the Government have been tightening up the regulations on student visas, and many universities are complaining that, far from increasing, the number of new entrants is actually falling. Indeed, according to the latest figures, there has been a drop of 3% in new entrants for courses and, in particular, the number of students from west Africa and the Indian subcontinent is down.

The universities are particularly unhappy with the regime of “credibility interviews” instituted by the Home Office since 2012, whereby students, having applied for and received their certificate of acceptance by the universities, and then having to apply for a visa, are further interviewed by Home Office officials, often by Skype, to assess whether they are bona fide students. This is far from a small, random sample; in 2014, 125,000 credibility interviews took place and the total number of entrants was 174,000. There was also a sizeable increase in the number of visa refusals.

Research by the UK Council for International Student Affairs reveals that Home Office officials are making judgments well beyond the agreed terms of such interviews, often countering the university’s own assessment of academic potential on a seemingly random and inconsistent basis. But since those who conduct the interviews are not required to keep records of their reasons for turning down a visa, there is, at present, no recourse on these judgments. The overall result, far from encouraging overseas applicants to apply to our universities, drives them into the arms of our competitors, the USA, Canada and Australia, all of which, like the UK, are seeking to increase applicants from abroad.

On the face of it, there are two wholly incompatible strands of government policy: on the one hand seeking to increase overseas student numbers and, on the other, seeking all possible ways to cut net migration numbers. Universities are keen to expand the intake of students from non-EU countries—they bring, as I have said, substantial income both to the university and to local business, and many taught graduate programmes are dependent on recruiting overseas students. But inevitably, expansion in overseas student numbers increases net migration and results in tighter and tighter controls over the issuing of student visas, with the UK appearing more and more unwelcoming to overseas students. The one policy totally contradicts the other.

Others besides me have suggested treating students as temporary migrants and separating them from the net migration figures. The Government have resisted that on three grounds. In the first place, the ONS is obliged to use the UN definition of migrant. Secondly, students, even if temporary migrants, use public services and in this sense are in no way different from other migrants. Thirdly, the International Passenger Survey suggests that many students do not return when their visas expire and are therefore not temporary migrants.

I will return to the first of those, the UN definition, in a moment, but I will deal briefly with the other two issues. Most students are young people who make relatively little demand on public services and are in any case now required to pay an NHS surcharge. As we saw earlier, far from being a burden, they contribute substantially to the UK economy and in the long run very substantially.

In relation to the IPS, there is much controversy over its validity. There are good figures because of visas and university registrations for new entrants, but although attempts are being made to collate exit records, these are as yet in their infancy, which is why reliance has to be placed on the IPS. Even the Oxford-based Migration Observatory concluded that the statistics were unreliable and that the temporariness of international students remains uncertain.

That brings me to my final point—the UN definition of migrant. I suggest that the answer is to copy the Americans. The US gets over the problem by issuing two different sets of statistics on net immigration. The first, issued by the US Census Bureau uses the same UN definition of migrant and, like the UK ONS, measures overall flows of people, including students, in and out of the country on an annual basis. The second set of statistics, produced for the Department of Homeland Security, makes the distinction between permanent immigrants and those classed as non-immigrant admissions, which includes students alongside tourists, business travellers and those involved in cultural exchanges. Canada and Australia make a similar distinction. It seems such a simple solution to a problem that has caused the Government a good deal of grief.

I end by posing two questions to the Minister. Why cannot this country be more pragmatic like the Americans and use two sets of statistics, thereby complying with the UN requirements in measuring overall migration flows, but having a sensible set of statistics on which to base their net immigration targets? Secondly, why does the Home Office think it necessary to best-guess university admissions systems and run such a heavy-handed programme of credibility interviews? Random sampling is one thing; interviewing and often in the process upsetting and putting off two-thirds of potential entrants is another. Is this really necessary?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord, who knows this area inside out, knows that we looked at that very carefully. It is true that the United States separates that category out, but when it calculates net migration, it adds it back in. The United States behaves differently because it does not have a net migration target. We do, and therefore we have chosen to include students in the numbers.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

Would the noble Lord not consider publishing the two statistics side by side, as the Americans do? We could have the net migration figures, but let us also have the figures excluding the students, so that the population can judge for themselves whether the targets have been met.

[Lord Bates]

Given the gap in the numbers, which we do not yet fully understand, the Government are not comfortable enough to take the heat from our heels—as it were—on the immigration statistics by providing a potentially sharp change in the net migration numbers. It might give us a degree of comfort that is not borne out in reality. The better our data and intelligence, the better able we will be to say to universities, “Listen, your responsibility is not just to attract people here, to ensure they are qualified to come and to give them a great education, but to ensure that, when their time is up and their visa has expired, they go home and use that education to build another career”. There are many ways we can all work together, and I am simply extending the opportunity to continue the dialogue—I am sure it will continue on the Floor of the House, but such dialogue can sometimes be engaged in more constructively with officials from different departments off the Floor—should it be helpful to the noble Baroness. I am grateful to her for raising this matter.