Immigration: Overseas Students

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for initiating this debate on such an important subject. The only problem with the debate is that we all agree with each other, and I certainly agree with most of what has been said.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on her excellent and inspiring maiden speech. She comes to the House with a huge reputation as an advocate of civil liberties in this country and abroad. This House is surely enormously strengthened by having as a Member somebody with her experience and knowledge. She is very welcome here.

I declare an interest as a former chairman of King’s College London. Having served there for nine years, I know well the importance of foreign students at so many of the leading universities in this country, perhaps particularly in London. The problem, of course, is that students are included in the immigration statistics. Those who voted for Brexit and those who are concerned about immigration do not, on the whole, consider students to be immigrants, and even if they do, they are not particularly concerned about student immigrants. Like other noble Lords, I urge the Minister, whom I much admire, to try to persuade the Home Secretary to take students out of the immigration figures.

If the Government really do want to get immigration down to below 100,000, that will be completely impossible if students continue to be counted. I have heard the Government’s response that it is not possible to take students out of the immigration figures because all countries are required to use the United Nations definition of an immigrant: a person who comes to a country with the intention of staying for more than 12 months. However, the United States of America apparently has found a way round this. It produces two sets of figures: one based on the United Nations definition and one prepared by the Department of Homeland Security, which makes the distinction between permanent and temporary immigrants. Would it not be sensible for this country to try to do something similar?

As has been mentioned, only a year ago it was government policy to try to increase international student numbers by 20% over the next few years. The numbers are now starting to fall and this is mainly because of visa and immigration problems. My main concern is that there have been a number of intimations from government that overseas students are not welcome in the United Kingdom. Far from discouraging students, we should be encouraging overseas students. Various figures have been suggested, but non-EU students pay in excess of £4 billion a year to British universities. Universities are an important service industry to this country.

Britain has 32 universities in the top 200 in the world. This compares with 62 in the United States, a country with five times the population of our own, 22 in Germany and only four in France. The fact is that in this country we do universities very well, and we should be very proud of that. We should recognise the contribution that UK universities make to the country and to the economy, both financially and academically. Tens of thousands of students from India and China want to come here but we are losing market share because it is more difficult to get a visa to come here than, for instance, to the United States.

We all know that in the past, student visas were granted for study at educational establishments that were not approved colleges or universities. Clearly, there must be a rigorous standard set for students to come here, and only students coming to study at recognised institutions should be given a visa. But we are competing with other countries to attract the best students and it should be no more difficult to come here than it is to go to the United States, Canada or Australia, to take three examples.

In conclusion, it is clear that noble Lords in all parts of this House are asking the Home Secretary and her Ministers to re-evaluate the immigration policy as it pertains to students. The students do not have to come here, and the best will go elsewhere if we do not make it easier for them. We should recognise that it is in the interests of this country for them to study here. Most who do will go home with a higher opinion of this country and it is in our national interest to get this right.