High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

My Lords, I declare that I am a non-executive director of HS2 and chief executive of London First.

I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mair, on his excellent and interesting maiden speech. I am delighted to have someone who knows about tunnels in the Lords, in the case of both HS2 and, possibly, Crossrail 2 in the future. World-class institutions, with their very sensitive scientific instruments, were referred to earlier. I would welcome the noble Lord’s expertise on how we can deal with vibrations in the area around Euston. I also hope that we in the Lords will have more tunnels to consider as we sort out connectivity in the north, and, I fear, in London as we sort out our current roads gridlock, where we may need to turn to tunnels.

I move on to say why I have always supported HS2. First, it adds capacity on the congested lines coming into London and provides opportunity and connectivity further north. Secondly, as can be seen in London, investment in big infrastructure projects provides development potential. For example, there is the Northern line extension to Battersea power station, the Olympics and the development of Stratford and Crossrail and the opportunity to the east of London.

HS2 is one of the biggest infrastructure investments in the world. It is both complicated and potentially game-changing. But, to maximise the opportunity, HS2, transport authorities and wider government need to grasp nettles rather than accept lowest common denominator solutions. We need to act with strategic intent. So what is the opportunity? HS2 needs to provide a 21st century passenger travel experience and contribute to the country’s economic, environmental and social development.

I start with the passenger. We know that there is more to do to sort out end-to-end passenger journeys. Why are rail tickets still on bits of paper? If I am elderly and carrying luggage, how do I feel about the walk from King’s Cross St Pancras to the Victoria line, or through the cattle pen beneath Waterloo? More specifically for HS2, will my onward journey from Euston to my meeting in London take as long as my journey from Birmingham? Will I feel uplifted by my experience of Curzon Street station? Can my children rag around on the train? Will my luggage fall over? Will the mobile phone and wi-fi have dead spots? Will I be able to make a videoconference call without being annoying or annoyed? Will there be a business lounge at every station? What about a crèche? Will someone take my luggage from me and deliver it straight to the hotel? How do I get the few yards from Euston to King’s Cross at surface level? Will my driverless car or Uber be there to pick me up?

I hope that HS2, with the help of its excellent design panel, will be a model for how to start with the passenger experience and finish with stations and trains, rather than the other way round. In sync with that, I urge our long-lived Secretary of State for Transport to batter away at those interfaces where Network Rail meets HS2, or a train-operating company meets Transport for London, where the passenger is too often, in practice, last on the list.

But there is the yet-larger challenge of delivering the wider benefits. In the current spirit of devolution and regeneration, what can the Government do to help local authorities—including with money—develop plans for how to make the most of our stations? There is opportunity for hotels, offices and leisure facilities around all the stations. And, if we are aspiring to highest common factor, how can it be that we are developing the HS2 station at Euston like putting lipstick on a pig, rather than planning the overhaul of the whole station area, including Crossrail 2? Could the Department for Transport, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Treasury not step up to the plate and turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse—if I do not overmix my metaphors?

I finish on a topic close to my heart. HS2 is both an opportunity and an irritation for the immediate community along the line. It is beholden on HS2 to treat that community with respect, but more than that, HS2 needs to get ahead of the game and offer solutions. If we need to remove someone’s playground, make sure we offer a better one elsewhere. If we need to cut down trees, create a linear park along the railway instead. HS2 should enhance, rather than hinder, the world-class institutions around Euston. I know that the organisation has taken to heart criticism of its community engagement and it plans to do better. When we move from phase 1 to phase 2, I encourage all of government and HS2 to learn from the push-back in the phase 1 petitioning. Across government, we have signed up to a set of principles for wider benefits. Let us use these to guide our response to petitioning and, as a result, be sure of investing not only in a railway but in the communities around it.

Airports: Expansion

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Valentine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether a final decision will be taken on airports expansion before the summer recess.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport and Home Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, a number of important decisions on airport capacity were taken by the Government in December, including the decision to expand airport capacity in the south-east. However, we must take the time to get the location decision right.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

It is important. The Government are further considering the environmental impacts, which I am sure all noble Lords recognise, and the best possible measures to mitigate the impacts of expansion. This work will be concluded by the summer.

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

As the Minister will be aware, various Governments have avoided taking a decision on where to put a runway in the south-east since the Second World War, so he is in good company in failing to be too precise about exactly when that decision might be taken. We are all aware of the gathering political storms which may yet blow the Government off course. If we eventually get a decision, given all the work that the Airports Commission has done over the past few years and the further work that the Government have been undertaking on specific issues, might the Minister be in a position to publish a draft national policy statement at the same time as the announcement?

Airport Capacity

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I assure the noble Lord that we are moving forward. I have talked of the timetable that we are moving to. As I said earlier, it will ensure that we meet the required deadline. Whatever decision is taken, the Government have accepted in principle the findings of the Davies commission. Three options were put forward and none was discarded by the commission. We are ensuring that all three stay on the table, and we are firmly committed to south-eastern airport expansion. The important thing is to ensure that all considerations are taken into account. With the timetable that we have outlined, we will be able to proceed forward. It will be a great asset for UK plc to ensure that we reach a decision quickly on south-eastern airport expansion capacity in summer next year.

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

Does the Minister understand how deeply frustrated the business community feels about this further delay? We had a three-year independent commission, which was supposed to take the politics out of it, but it has come back into political soup. It appears that the Government have answered the interim report of two years ago, which suggested that we focus on three options and that we accept that there was a need for expansion in the south-east. I do not understand what progress has been made in the last two years. In the interim report there was a recommendation for an independent noise ombudsman to sort out the noise issues. We have known for 15 years that we are in breach of European air-quality limits in London. It is simply unclear to me what the Government have been doing for the last three years.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

We are moving forward. We will begin work straightaway on preparing the building blocks for an airports national policy statement, as I said in my earlier Statement; that is the most appropriate vehicle to set the framework for the planning consent for new capacity. Noble Lords should be assured that, with the proposals we are moving forward on and the important consideration being given to environmental impacts, we will still be able to move forward on whatever decision is taken in line with the Davies commission proposals.

Higher Education: Overseas Students

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Let me underscore that absolute commitment. When people are coming here to study, they are coming to invest in the UK and they will be welcome. There is no cap on students coming to the UK, provided that they are bona fide students in bona fide universities and they have the funds necessary to complete their studies. We are talking about tier 4, which is the student visa, and whether people ought to be able to stay on. There are some examples of abuse of that system under the previous Government, and we are trying to tighten up on that by simply saying that they ought to have an appropriate visa. We have opened up new routes through tier 2 and tier 1 particularly to entrepreneurs and those in high-skilled occupations. They will continue to be welcome in this country, as in others around the world.

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

My Lords, as a member of the UCL Council, may I say how delighted I am that the Chancellor scotched the rumours before Christmas about further curtailment of the post-study work route? At London First, we have again issued a report showing how important the relationship with emerging economies is. Is the Minister aware of a study by Loughborough University which showed that nearly half of international students thought that the post-study work route was an important or the most important factor in deciding whether to study in the UK? Will he consider reinstating the two-year post-study work route for postgraduates and STEM graduates?

[Lord Bates]

STEM graduates—graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics—are certainly in demand. They will have no problem, if they have a bona fide employer, in meeting the criteria for tier 2, so there is no problem in ensuring that that opportunity will remain open. We want to welcome them. The question is whether 100,000 people ought to be able to stay on, as was the case before, without any limitations, doing jobs as baristas or making pizza deliveries. That is in no way to diminish the value of those jobs, but simply to say that that is not making best use of their degree and that they are jobs which could be provided to people who are here legally in the domestic market.

Visas: Student Visa Policy

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Valentine]

I declare that I am chief executive of London First, whose members include higher education institutions. My brief contribution today will follow the same theme as pursued by many who have already spoken.

I fully endorse the Government’s quest for an immigration policy that supports growth, addresses public concern and clamps down on bogus students. However, our actual policy is based on incomplete data and tends towards populism.

First, we have a net migration target, the paradox of which is that if fewer Brits retire to Spain and more Poles arrive to do our plumbing, we close our doors to international workers and students. Secondly, we base our policy on figures from the Office for National Statistics, which, frankly, has no idea how many students return home after studying in the UK, even though they make up about half our non-EU migrants. All this leaves international students as a random balancing number at the tail end of our immigration policy.

Given that we have four of the best universities in the world and that higher education is our eighth highest export, we are playing a risky game of economic roulette with the £5 billion that those students contribute. That is without adding the valuable diplomatic ties of their alumni—Bill Clinton, Indira Gandhi or Aung San Suu Kyi, to name a few from Oxford.

Encouraging figures regarding more applications from India and China were released by UCAS yesterday, but they are a small sample and should be set against the fuller data for the past two years. Indian and Pakistani students have fallen by about a quarter, and the Financial Times business education league table shows that MBA students have declined by about a fifth. Early research indicates that the policy of reducing post-study work options is a factor. I know of at least one major accountancy firm whose principal non-EU graduate intake is Indian, because it is expanding its offices in India and likes to train its graduates in London beforehand. Are we trying to hobble it? Our closest competitors, Australia and the USA, have no target to reduce international students, have more robust data, and are implementing or considering more flexible post-study work routes.

I understand that the Government wish to ensure the legitimacy and quality of migrants, but we should not create a climate where students feel that they are unwelcome because of the rhetoric around targets or because of unnecessary inflexibility. The fact is that we excel at higher education and make money exporting it. We should shout this from the rooftops and do more, not less.

Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords, my noble friend Lord Hunt and the Merits Committee in regretting that the Government have not published a comprehensive explanation of the findings from their consultation. Could that be because the consultation showed that the changes were a mistake and there was little support for them, as my noble friend Lord Hunt suggested? Let me put on record some of the consultations that I have carried out.

I shall quote from a briefing note dealing with the impact on the Imperial College Business School of the changes in the work permit regulations, particularly the recent decision to abolish the two-year post-study visa. The briefing note states:

“The UK’s main competitors in the higher education sector use post study work options to attract the best students. Without post study work options the UK and HE will lose valuable revenue, talent and impact our reputation”.

The school polled its non-EU graduate students, who comprise more than 50 per cent at that college. Of those, three-quarters indicated that they would not have chosen to study in the UK without the availability of these post-study visas. I put it to the Minister that this decision was inconsistent not only with the interests of Imperial College, but also with the policy of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

In March, along with the Budget, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills issued its Plan for Growth. Page 6 states that Britain should be the,

“home to more of the world’s top universities than any other country except the USA”.

Surely, Imperial College must be part of that ambition. Was BIS consulted as well as Imperial College? On page 91 of the Plan for Growth, the Government speak of healthcare and life sciences as key contributors to our future economy. Paragraph 2.185 states:

“Innovation is a key driver of long-term growth in the sector”.

I recently visited Professor Molly Stevens at Imperial College. She is its professor and research director for biomedical materials. Perhaps noble Lords will join me in congratulating her on being ranked by the Times Eureka magazine as second among the UK’s top 10 scientists under 40. She carries out exactly the type of work that the Government’s Plan for Growth identifies as a key driver of long-term growth. I shall quote what she said to me:

“In my particular group I have several very talented postdoctoral fellows. Ten of these come from outside Europe. I have absolutely no doubt that it is this combination of highly skilled people that has helped to make my group so successful. If I had not been able to take on those 10 international fellows then our work would have been of significantly lower impact. Facilitating visas for these people to work for us would bring so much value and advantage to our UK universities—they are completely invaluable. These staff, although highly skilled, will typically have earned very little during their PhD studies, making it even more difficult to qualify for some high skilled visa categories”.

If her work is a key driver for our long-term growth, were she or any of her colleagues consulted?

Was BIS consulted, because that is part of its policy? What about other parts of government? Were they consulted? Last Thursday, we had an interesting debate in your Lordships' House on soft diplomacy. Noble Lords spoke about building relationships with the next generation; how people who work and study here become our best ambassadors; how we build lasting ties in that way—just the sort of relationships that Imperial College is operating. Winding up, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, agreed with all of those comments. Indeed, he told us that the FCO had nearly completed a UK soft power business plan to reinvigorate and promote that very thing. Was the FCO consulted?

My noble friend Lord Judd spoke of joined-up government. Was there any joined-up government? Were the findings of the consultation just ignored? If they were properly considered, surely the Government would have found a way for the Borders Agency to control immigration in such a way that it did not help to defeat the stated aims of other government departments and cause difficulties for institutions on which the Government's policy depends.

I support my noble friend’s Motion because my consultation and the Government's decision are incompatible. I urge the Government to think again. Perhaps the most valuable role that this House performs for any Government is to provide a pathway for them to think again. I hope that the Minister will take advantage of that.

[Baroness Valentine]

I first declare that I am the chief executive of London First. I acknowledge that the Government have done a lot to address business concerns about the immigration caps. I remain, however, a sceptic on the benefits of a tier 1 and tier 2 cap and I certainly remain a sceptic about a net migration target where the Government have so little control over the factors influencing it. They cannot control immigration; they cannot control relative economic performance of countries or EU in flows and out flows. However, we are only one month into the new scheme, and we now need some stability and the opportunity to monitor the scheme's impact.

I make one plea of the Minister. Will she consider conducting a thorough economic and social impact study towards the end of this year so that we can improve the scheme based on evidence?

[The Earl of Sandwich]

I came in to say only a word in support of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I am very concerned about these rules going through without discussion. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, this is a water-under-the-bridge debate; we do not have time to have any impact. I have read the Merits Committee report and note the committee's disappointment about the lack of information all over the place. The Government are proposing major changes to the Immigration Rules which under the previous Government and the one before would have been the subject of serious debate— I have taken part in many of those debates.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and I went to a meeting this evening at which we heard reports of the Government’s hesitation about a proposed new convention on domestic labour. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in the earlier EU debate, said that the Government were reluctant about the EU directive on trafficking. The Government, whether it is in the Department for Work and Pensions or the Home Office, must pay careful attention to their international reputation in all these categories and, above all, ensure that the proposals are given the fullest public attention before they come into effect. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has already emphasised, these are sensitive issues. We must not have immigration policy by stealth.