Immigration Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, as a co-sponsor of this amendment, I too add my support to the pleas made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. There is no need at this point to further persuade the House of the enormous benefits that international students attending our universities bring to their universities, their local areas and the country at large. To focus minds, I will present one fact: it was announced today in a report by Universities UK that the total economic contribution to the UK made by higher education exports in 2011-12 was £10.71 billion. To put that in perspective, the House of Commons Library estimated the economic contribution of the entire motor vehicle manufacturing industry at £10.4 billion. That is the scale of the industry we are discussing today.

I think that the Minister and the Government accept that analysis and generally want to encourage students from across the world to study here, which is to be welcomed. But the Government need to be particularly careful that these welcoming messages are not undermined by changes to the visa system that could be perceived as being unwelcoming towards international students. The survey conducted by the NUS, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, highlights some worrying trends about the way the immigration system is perceived by the very people the Government want to attract.

Some of the measures in Part 3 have the potential to add to that perception. That is why I and other noble Lords tabled our amendment to remove students from these measures and to send a clear signal to current and potential students that they are welcome in the UK. While the Government are introducing new barriers to potential international students, reassurances overseas that the UK is open for business may ring a little hollow.

I have talked of perception and presentation because these are very real concerns when it comes to attracting international students and staff to the UK. However, there are a number of more practical concerns about the impact these measures could have on both students and staff. I want to follow on from the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in introducing the amendment, all of which I support. Since this amendment was debated in Committee, the Minister has gone out of his way to provide detail on some of the measures in this part of the Bill, so I hope he will forgive me if I ask him to repeat and clarify some of these points now.

First, on the checks that landlords will be required to carry out before offering tenancy agreements, we should remember that many students coming to the UK will be moving out of their parents’ home, let alone their own country, for the first time. Assuming that the Minister’s Amendments 26 to 29 are accepted, many international students will live in accommodation that is exempted from the Bill, which is helpful. I am glad that the Government agree that the previous exemption failed to capture many students.

However, some students and, of course, the vast majority of international staff will still be moving into property in the private rental sector which is not exempted by the Bill. It is essential that students are able to secure accommodation in good time before their arrival in the UK. Similarly, academic staff at universities will want to make sure that they and their families have a roof over their head before they move here.

Tier 4 student visas can be applied for only a maximum of three months before the date of travel, so they are often received very close to the date that the student arrives in the UK. Students must be able to make at least conditional arrangements before they receive their visas. Will the Minister clarify that it will be legal and proper for landlords to enter into conditional arrangements with potential tenants who do not at the time of entering into that conditional agreement have a relevant visa and that this will be clearly communicated in any official guidance issued?

Secondly, only those without settlement rights will have to pay the NHS surcharge. Time spent on a tier 4 student visa does not count towards residency requirements for settlement rights. As other noble Lords have said, the Bill could result in the deeply iniquitous situation that an economic migrant who is later granted settlement may have to pay the charge for five years but a student who finds work and stays on here may have to pay for far longer—as long as 12 years in a row—if they studied at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

With the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I ask: will the Minister commit to addressing this unfairness when the secondary legislation is drafted? It is easily fixable by, say, limiting to five the number of years for which a person would have to pay the charge. There is provision in the Bill to at least have these charges applied fairly. Will the Minister commit to doing so?

I cannot end without supporting the plea of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, on behalf of postgraduate students. Those with a family are going to be hit really hard by the health charges. One has only to think of the number of our postgraduate courses that survive only because of the number of international students that we are able to attract to see the dangers if large numbers should fall.

I remain concerned that this Bill is part of a wider trend of immigration policy that could mean that the UK fails to capitalise on the extraordinary potential of its higher education sector. Even if the Minister is unable to commit to reversing this trend this afternoon, I hope that he will address at least some of the practical issues that I have highlighted today.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with great interest to the debate on this amendment in Committee on 10 March. Unfortunately, I was unable to stay for all of it, although I read it carefully in Hansard, and so was not able to take part, but I would like to make a brief contribution today.

Winding up for the Opposition on that occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara—that demon of the squash court, as he keeps saying—had some fun at the expense of my noble friend Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, when he said:

“I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, on putting his head above the parapet. Although I think he picked up some of the arguments, I did not think his heart was entirely in it”.—[Official Report, 10/3/14; cols. 1607-08.]

I intend to put my head above the parapet this afternoon, and I have to say that my heart is entirely in it.

Overseas students make an exceptionally valuable contribution that enriches our university life, but as I shall explain, I have concerns about scale, about leakage at the end of courses, and various consequent impacts on our settled population. Further, I think the extent of the beneficial impacts, adduced by various briefings we have had, are somewhat overstated.

I begin by following my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby in talking about the briefings we have had, some of which have been quite cataclysmic in tone. They suffer, in certain instances, from mixing absolute numbers and percentages. It is perfectly possible to have an increasing absolute number and a declining percentage. Indeed, if one looks at market share, as some of the briefings do, it is almost certain that the UK will have a declining market share in an era when global university education is rising rapidly in parallel with people in the UK wanting to study overseas. In addition, as the UK has a historically high level of overseas students and a relatively small population in world terms, our market share is almost certainly bound to be declining.

More importantly, there have been attempts, in my view, to ascribe all the changes in student numbers to the proposals that we are discussing in this Bill. This is fanciful. There is a host of other reasons that influence people’s decisions on where to study—of those, notably, cost. Indeed, there was an article in the Times yesterday with a headline that suggested changes in the system were deterring students, but when you got into the meat of the article it was actually about cost. The piece mentioned cost only in sterling or Euro terms, failing to take into account the other great part of the cost—changes in the exchange rate. A year ago $1.50 bought you £1; today you need $1.66, so if you are a dollar-based student you are facing an increase of 10% in the costs of studying here in the UK. As regards India, which is an even more important market, as many noble Lords have said, a year ago 83 rupees bought you £1; today you need 100—a 20% increase in costs to a student from India.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I wonder whether he does not find it a trifle ironical that he is speaking from the Benches of a Government who have exhorted the country, correctly in my view, to succeed in what is called the global race, and above all to maximise the industries and services that we produce best. He has developed an extremely elaborate argument for saying that we must embrace declinism in the higher education sector and we must accept that it is not in our interest to go on growing this potentially extremely valuable resource. Is it not a bit contrary to government policy that one industry in this country should be treated as something that can be tripped up and hampered at every stage while all the others are being encouraged to develop?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I obviously have not made myself clear. I hope that I have made it clear that I am not attacking foreign students because I think that they have an important role to play. I said that, first, the Government’s proposals are not the key determinant of why people come to study here. The key determinant is the overall cost and, in particular, the cost in the currency of the country of origin of the student in question. Secondly, I question—I do not know—that the long-term economic benefits which have been adduced to having students here are not as great as they might be.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

The noble Lord has talked about costs. Does he not agree that one of the great advantages of having overseas students in this country is the fact that they bring down the costs for internal students reading medicine and engineering in particular? Otherwise, our universities would have to charge them much more.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

The noble Lord is right, but if what UK universities are saying is that they want to bring foreign students here to subsidise our university education system, that would be a clearer argument than the rather lofty arguments we hear that our duty is to do this because of our benefit to the world and because it is actually to our long-term advantage. If the noble Lord is saying that it is really all about money in the short term, fine—let us say that and be clear about it. I understand that as an argument and I am perfectly happy to accept its value.

Perhaps I may conclude. I repeat again for the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that we should attract students to study here, but we need to do so with realistic aims in mind. In our very proper wish to do right by the world, we should not overlook the needs and indeed the rights of our settled population. That is why in my view the Government are right to take these measured steps. They are steps that I believe, and which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, have acknowledged, have become more measured as the Government have responded to comments and criticisms as laid out in my noble friend’s letters of 12 March and 1 April. That is why I will be supporting the Government if the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, decides to test the opinion of the House on this amendment.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will not feel that he has to test the opinion of the House, but I can imagine that he has been to some degree sorely provoked to do so by the remarks of my noble friend. That is because there did seem to be an inherent contradiction in them. On the one hand he protests—I do not doubt his integrity for half a second—that he wishes to see foreign students come here in great numbers, while on the other he seems to be arguing that we should not push it too far.

I do not want to repeat what I said in Committee when I supported the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, but I will briefly refer to one thing that I touched on then. I have the honour of being a member of the senior common room at St Antony’s College, Oxford. As I told noble Lords last time, we have students from 73 countries there at the moment. It is an extraordinarily important centre for postgraduate education—not just in Oxford, not just in England, but in Europe and, indeed, the world. From all over the world students come. In common with students at other colleges and universities, many of them go back and play leading roles in their countries. Some stay and play leading roles in ours. Where would we be in medical science and many other disciplines if some of them had not stayed? I hate to think how many consultants there would be in some of our hospitals—excellent consultants—if it were not for the fact that foreign students had come here, been taught—no doubt inspirationally—by people such as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and had stayed. We are protecting ourselves, as well as our image as a nation, if we encourage without inhibition and without qualification.

I was very taken by what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, both in Committee and today, and by what my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby said. However, I have also been extremely impressed by the diligent interest that my noble friend Lord Taylor has taken in these matters. He clearly listened carefully to the arguments advanced in Committee and has tabled a number of amendments today that will go a fair way towards meeting many of the concerns that were expressed in Committee. I thank him for that, and for the infinite patience and trouble that he has taken in talking to me and others, and in trying to recognise where we are coming from.

A word that cropped up many times in our first debate was “perception”, and it has been touched on again today. How are we perceived? Where I take slight issue, not with my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby but with the National Union of Students’ report from which she quoted, is that my anecdotal evidence from St Antony’s, Hull, Lincoln and other universities with which I have a connection would not bear that out. Most of the foreign students to whom I have talked have always said that they feel extremely welcome here—and proud to be here. They are anxious to stay to complete their studies, and most of them are anxious to return to play a leading part in their countries or localities when they go back. The National Union of Students’ statistics, which of course I am not in a position to challenge, clearly depend upon the questions that were asked. I just wonder what questions were asked.

However, I am concerned not with the past or the present so much as the future. It is clear from the article from which my noble friend Lord Hodgson quoted, and from other reports in recent months, that there is a falling off in the number of students coming from certain countries. Of course my noble friend Lord Hodgson is entirely right to say that there are a variety of causes and reasons for this. Of course he is right to say that cost is a factor, but it is not by any means the only factor. What we have to be absolutely sure of is that students coming, or contemplating coming, from other countries still keep the United Kingdom very much at the top of their wish list. From talking to Professor Margaret MacMillan, the Warden of St Antony’s, who herself is a distinguished Canadian historian, it is clear that Canada and the USA are more attractive to many students who would hitherto have put the United Kingdom at the top of their list. I am concerned about that.

I very much hope that when the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, as of course it will, we will have been able to inject amendments into it that will make it very clear that, in seeking to tighten up our immigration policy, we are not in any way setting our face against students. The Prime Minister himself has said on many occasions that foreign students are welcome here without any cap on numbers. I welcome that. I am sure there is not a single Member of your Lordships’ House who does not welcome that. But it is important that we prove that that is what we mean by the contents of the legislation that we pass.

I look forward very much to what my noble friend the Minister will say when he replies. I hope and believe that he will be able to give the sort of assurances that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, sought in his speech. I hope that the House will be united in backing his amendment, secure in the knowledge that, supplemented by future regulations, the situation will be as we would wish it to be: namely, that any potential student, be he or she in India, any part of the African continent or anywhere else for that matter, will feel that not only are the doors indeed open but that the “Welcome” sign is above them.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who in Committee and on Report supported the amendments put down in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, whose absence today is entirely due to being in Athens on the business of the House.

I have drawn enormous comfort and support from the way in which each of the debates we have held has been lengthy, thoughtful and devoted entirely to the matter in hand. I contrast that with the fact that the other place, when it took this legislation, never actually got around to talking about students or higher education at all because they were so busy chasing Romanians and Bulgarians around the Chamber. That is perhaps a tribute to the way in which your Lordships’ House conducts its business. We do not miss out really important issues like that of students.

I have a brief comment—or perhaps two—on the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. He raised the question of whether universities were aware and made enough of the fact that foreign students help them subsidise domestic students. All I can tell him is that if he talks to anyone in the higher education sector, of course they all know that perfectly well. They know that a number of courses, particularly STEM courses, would simply not be maintainable without overseas student enrolment. However, the noble Lord will recognise that if we are trying to recruit overseas students, this is not a major sales point. It is not terribly wise to go around the world saying, “You may think your fees are a bit on the high side—but don’t worry, they are going to support British students”. I hope he will understand that one has to treat that with a certain amount of care.

Of course, the noble Lord is right about the exchange rate having extreme importance. I can only offer him the advice that Miss Prism offers Cecily in “The Importance of Being Earnest”:

“The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational”.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I understand exactly what the noble Lord says, and I understand about the sales pitch. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that I am not going to make another Second Reading speech, but we in this House have got ourselves into a position where we are talking about what the Government are saying about visas and about “curbs”: that was the word used. In fact, what it comes down to when you read the detail is that the checks and balances that the Government are proposing to ensure that there is some recovery of costs are not the key issue. The key issue is the overall cost of the education, particularly in the currency of the country from which the student comes.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Well, I think Miss Prism probably had it about right.

Having considered the possibilities, I was struck by the fact that all three Front Benches are opposed to the amendment. The Official Opposition’s description of the reasons for which they were opposed to it holds about as much water as a colander; but let us leave that to one side.

I thank the Minister for his extremely considerate response, for the work he has done in the past few weeks, particularly on the issue of student accommodation, to try to meet some of the concerns that have been expressed, and for the very clear way in which he has replied to questions I and the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick, Lady Williams and Lady Hamwee, raised in today’s debate. I found some that of the things that he said really helpful. They are on the record and that is very valuable indeed.

Before closing, I will make one point that is outside the scope of this debate. Within the next year, all three main parties are going to write their manifestos for the next election. It would not surprise anyone, I imagine, that there will be a substantial section on immigration in every one of those manifestos, because it is a burning issue of the hour. I make a plea that when they write these manifesto chapters on immigration, they make it quite clear that in the next Parliament they will not treat overseas students as normal economic migrants in terms of the Government’s immigration policy: that they will reflect and that they will respect the specificity of the higher education sector. Frankly, I do not think that they will lose a single vote if they say that, but they will save themselves an awful lot of trouble in the next Parliament. I hope that that plea will be heard and, in any case, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.