Immigration: Students

Debate between Lord Turnberg and Lord Henley

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.