Student Visas

Debate between Lord Bilimoria and Lord Murray of Blidworth

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

It is clear that the students who have these visas are entitled to work for 20 hours a week, the dependants of students are entitled to work in an unrestricted way and they are obviously users of services provided by the state. For all those reasons, it makes sense that they be included in the net migration figures.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Students and the president of UKCISA. Is the Minister aware that we are in a global race for international students? We are against Australia, the United States of America and Canada, in particular, and those countries offer far better postgraduate work opportunities than we do. We offer two years; Australia offers four, five and six years. Why do we keep including international students in our net migration figures? It is wrong and fooling the public. The USA and Australia treat them as temporary migrants, which is what they are. If you exclude international students from the net migration figures, maybe the Government will hit the targets they have wanted to hit for so many years.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave some moments ago. It is worth saying, in relation to the first part of his question, that these changes will ensure that the UK’s higher education establishments are focused on recruiting students based on economic value and not on dependants, whose value in terms of student fees and wages is minimal. We have been successful in delivering our international educational goal of hosting up to 600,000 students per year by 2030 almost a decade earlier than planned and expect universities to be able to adapt to reduce dependant numbers.

Net Migration Figures

Debate between Lord Bilimoria and Lord Murray of Blidworth

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am unwilling to engage in conjecture as to what the figures will be for the coming year, but it is certainly clear that the measures we have announced on the student route reform, which the House heard about on the previous Question, will have a considerable effect in reducing the levels of migration in those categories for the year commencing January 2024. We will have to see what the statistics reveal in due course.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has five priorities. One of them is to stop illegal migration through the boats crossing the channel. Everyone agrees that we must do everything we can to stop them. Another of his priorities is to grow the economy. If the Prime Minister wants this, why are we restricting businesses from getting the labour force they need if they cannot get it domestically? I just had a meeting with leading hoteliers. One of them is shortly opening one of the best hotels in London and is targeting under 100% occupancy: he cannot recruit the people he needs. We need to activate the shortage occupation list. That is the promise of the points-based system. That will help. If we exclude international students from net migration figures, we will not scare people with these high figures that are not a true representation of migration into this country.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Lord neatly identifies the balancing act that needs to be performed by the Government on net migration. Clearly the Government cannot permit circumstances to arise where employers utilise foreign labour over domestic labour for the pursuit of greater profit. Of course, the countervailing factor is the availability of labour. The Government are obviously aware of these issues and make their decisions accordingly.