Immigration: Students

Lord Henley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what evaluation they have made of the impact of the new student visa rules on the intake of overseas students in United Kingdom universities for the academic year 2011–12.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the Government’s impact assessment concludes that the student visa reforms will have no impact on the number of visas issued to international students to attend UK universities either in the academic year 2011-12 or in subsequent years.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, that shows that the impact assessment must be flawed. The early indications are that they are being heavily impacted, particularly from India, where the number of students is 20 per cent to 50 per cent down, as a result probably of the withdrawal of the post-study work route visa. Will the Government reconsider their policy before treating students as economic migrants and irreparable damage is done both to the finances and the reputation of UK universities?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept what my noble friend had to say, and I would refer him to the comments made by Universities UK about the reforms, saying that they will allow British universities to remain at the forefront of international student recruitment. I also refer my noble friend to the latest figures for non-EU university student applications for the 2012 academic year which are mostly for medical, dentistry, veterinary and Oxbridge courses, and those show an 8.8 per cent rise.

[Baroness Prashar]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Government should introduce a transitional measure for those students already in the UK whose colleges closed either as a result of action taken by the UK Border Agency or because many private and public sector providers voluntarily relinquished their licence because the system became too burdensome? It is estimated that there are some 5,000 internal students with no course, no sponsor and the majority have lost their fees. Would it not be more humane and less damaging for the reputation of the UK if those already here could retain their current visas and work entitlements while moving to an alternative sponsor? This would avoid students, particularly those from poor countries, staying here illegally.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we want to make sure that we continue to have high-quality students coming to the UK, and that is why I am very grateful for the support of Universities UK for the reforms that we are proposing. What we do not want are bogus students coming over for what might be called rather dubious or possibly non-existent institutions. As I have made clear, what we have done certainly has the support of Universities UK and will benefit universities in the UK, although it might not benefit what I would describe as the somewhat dubious institutions that have been acting in this field. We want to clamp down on the abuses of the immigration system that have crept in here.

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, theological and bible colleges are generally small institutions but highly cross-cultural in character because of their international students. The chances of these international students abusing their immigration status seems tiny, yet these institutions have to go through the same procedures as large universities at a very high and unsustainable per capita cost. Can the Minister suggest how we might have a size-sensitive system which prevents these institutions operating with no international students at all?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I would hope, as I think would the whole House, that most theological colleges are reputable institutions. However, if some of them are facing problems because of their size, I will take away the right reverend Prelate’s point and have a look at it. As I said, we want to make sure that we get the right students into the right institutions but get rid of the abuse that has crept into the system.

[Lord Turnberg]

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the particular problems faced by overseas medical students? There are more than 3,000 of them in the UK at the moment and they have problems when they want to bring a spouse or children here. That is to say nothing of the fact that we have included these 3,000 in the calculation of the number of doctors that we are likely to need. Is this not counterproductive?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we have tightened up on dependants coming in, but only dependants wishing to study for first degrees. Dependants will still be able to come in for postgraduate courses. I will look at the point that the noble Lord makes in relation to medical students but I am not aware of a fall in the number of medical applications. As I said in answer to the first supplementary question, we seem to have seen a rise over the past year.

[Baroness Brinton]

The UK Border Agency has recently decided that it will no longer accept guarantees from UK higher education institutions for UK-based packages, including part-time work and bursaries. We do not understand the reason for this. Can the Minister explain why the rules have changed, especially given the soundness of most universities in this country?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we accept that most of our universities are proper, reputable institutions, and that is why we have given universities additional flexibility in some matters. However, I will look at the specific point that my noble friend has raised. In the main, UK universities are fine on this; the abuse occurs elsewhere.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the new student visa rules have placed a further responsibility on the UK Border Agency at the same time as it has received a 20 per cent cut in its budget for a four-year period. Is the noble Lord confident that the UKBA has the resources to do the job that it has been given?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, yet again the noble Lord seems to be denying the need to make cuts as a result of the profligacy of the party opposite. Yes, we are confident that the UKBA has, and will continue to have, sufficient resources to deal with the job that it has. No doubt I shall be dealing with these matters later when the noble Lord raises a somewhat spurious amendment to the terrorism Bill.

[Lord Naseby]

Is it not enormously welcome that Her Majesty’s Government have taken action to close these bogus colleges, which defrauded young students and were useless so far as the UK was concerned? Perhaps I may suggest to my noble friend that he contacts the high commissioners for the genuine Indian sub-continent students to see whether over the next year we can help those genuine students to come here.

[Lord Henley]

I thank my noble friend for that contribution. I remind him that, as a result of this measure, we will see a reduction in net migration numbers of some 60,000 a year. We are committed to this and will want to go further in due course.