Student Visas

Andrew Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Having spoken to UK Border Agency officers at points of entry, I am conscious of the frustration that they have felt at not having the discretion to deal with people whom they have plainly seen were not coming here as bona fide students, so I am pleased to restore a degree of discretion to them. My hon. Friend tempts me to go further than that, but that is not a path down which I intend to go at the moment. There were some issues raised about the greater degree of discretion available previously, but we are constantly looking at our immigration system and the way in which UKBA officers operate.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I welcome the continuation of the notion of trusted status among the universities. When the Home Secretary finesses the rules, will she ensure sufficient scope for universities to take into account the realities of the circumstances that face them? In some areas of science and engineering, students come here with weak English but amazing skills and the ability to learn very quickly. Equally, some post-doctoral or postgraduate students come here with spouses who do not speak English. Will she ensure that universities have the capacity to deal with all those complex cases?

[Mrs May]

We have already introduced some English language requirements for people coming here to marry somebody in the UK, but the English language requirement relates to the postgraduate student who will be at university, not to a spouse entering as the dependant. It has been put to me that there are potentially a small number of cases of people who are extremely bright, but who do not have the correct level of English. My answer to that is twofold. First, it will be open to those people to go through a pathway course to the university. However, secondly, we will retain a small margin of flexibility where academic registrars have an individual student who is particularly brilliant but whose English they do not think will improve to the necessary level within the time scale required.