Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Patten of Barnes

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 462 is in my name and the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon. The subject of this amendment is the practice of treating higher education undergraduate and postgraduate students as long-term economic migrants. It is a subject that is, frankly, extremely familiar to the House. We have debated it on a number of occasions in the last six years to my knowledge, and speakers from all corners of the House have deplored this method of treating students as economic migrants. I remember an occasion, I think when the noble Lord, Lord Bates, was standing up for the Home Office, when 20 people in succession denounced this system, and not one spoke in its favour. Noble Lords are familiar with this matter, so I will not go on at great length, but we have an opportunity to do something about it, not just to wring our hands and talk about it.

I will not weary the Committee with a shower of statistics, but no one contests that the excellence of our higher education establishments is a massive national asset, making the sector one of our largest invisible exports and putting us second only to the United States in the league tables of that sector. In addition, no one contests that overseas students who pay in ready cash for their fees and maintenance costs put huge resources into our economy and create, rather than substitute, employment. They are an important part of our universities’ ability to function effectively and, as they have done in recent years, to expand.

To give just a few figures, 13% of undergraduates are overseas students, while 38% of postgraduates are. No one contests that when these students return to their home countries, they represent a substantial, if unquantifiable, source of soft power for this country for decades to come. Yet we categorise these students as economic migrants, and in recent years have piled up a mass of obstacles, both bureaucratic and material, to their coming to study here, and post-Brexit, there could be more. The consequences are pretty clear: overseas student figures are down substantially. Overall, the number of non-EU students is down by between 2% and 8%. The number of students from India is down by a half in the last two or three years.

The Government protest that we are doing extraordinarily well because of the numbers from China, but I really would ask whether it is wise to depend to an increasing extent on students from an authoritarian country which could quite easily turn the tap off, just like that, if there was a political spat between us. Look at our main competitors: the US, in that same period that we were down by between 2% and 8%, was up by 7.1%; and Australia was up by 8%. We are losing market share—it is as simple as that.

This amendment has two objectives, one positive and the other negative. The objective of the positive part of the amendment is to place a duty on the Secretary of State to encourage overseas students to come to this country—not just to not discourage that but to positively encourage it. I know the Government make efforts to do that, but most of the efforts they make are countered by this pile of obstacles that they put up at the same time. The objective of the negative part of the amendment is to cease treating these students, whether postgraduates or undergraduates, for public policy purposes, as economic migrants. This is much more than just a statistical issue—although the statistics are part of it—but I sometimes ask myself how there could be any rational explanation for a Government who are under criticism for the level of immigration insisting on artificially boosting the figures by including students. It makes no sense when it is not done by the United States, Australia or others where the issue of immigration is also very sensitive. They do not make this mistake.

The wording of the amendment, therefore, goes wider than statistics and addresses the whole range of policies that might discourage higher education students from studying here. I hope very much that this can be pursued and adopted as part of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, my default position is always to try to be helpful. That is one reason why I was so pleased to support this very important amendment to this legislation. How can I be helpful? First, we know that having now shaken off the chains of membership of the European Union, and having turned our back on a millennium of introverted, insular history, we have become “global Britain”. It would be extraordinary if, having become “global Britain”, we were to prevent the huge numbers more of international students coming to study here. It has been said again and again in this debate that our higher education system is one of the jewels in our crown. It is not surprising, therefore, that so many other people want to enjoy its benefits.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out some of the absurdities of the present situation, such as the fact that we choose to define students as immigrants. They are not immigrants. There is arguably a problem about immigration in the medium term or the long term. What we do is simply take the figure that represents those who have come to the country in one year and those who leave it in four or five years’ time. We count them as immigrants. Why do we do it? Why do we deny ourselves and our universities the benefits of educating more young people from around the world? Why do we deny ourselves that benefit? It is not, frankly, because people in this country think we would be crazy to define students as what they are.

Every bit of research that I have seen, including research undertaken by the Conservative Party, has made it absolutely clear that people understand the difference between a student and an immigrant. People understand the contribution that students make to local economies. People understand the benefits, in the long term, of having out there—I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said about this—people who understand what it is to have a great education in a liberal, plural society. It is an enormous benefit to us, so it is not just about money or price, but about values.

Why do we behave so foolishly? It is because of our fixation with the immigration target. Let us be clear: we put higher education in a more difficult position and we cut ourselves off from a great deal of economic benefits because of that obsession with an immigration target, which we fail to reach, very often because we are growing so rapidly year after year. We cannot say that we are doing this because people in this country think we would be crazy to make a change: they do not; they think it would be sensible. We cannot say that we do this because other countries around the world do not behave like that. They do, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said. We take advice from the Australians on immigration policy, apparently, and look what they do. Look at what the Americans and Canadians do. They all know that at the moment, with the growth of the middle class in Asia, more and more people want to spend their money on educating their children in great western universities. We—global Britain—have made the choice to cut ourselves off from that. It is completely crazy