Migration: University-sponsored Students

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I think that if the noble Lord looks at the statistics he will find that there has actually been an increase in the number of students from Malaysia and Singapore. I appreciate that there has been a decline in the number from India, but there have been increases from elsewhere. Here we are talking about university students, and we have not seen an overall drop in those numbers.

Again I go back to the point that it is quite obvious that the noble Lord seeks to ask me to fiddle the figures. I do not want to do that.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, if the Government are not happy to change the system of permanent and temporary migration figures, and given that in the past they have said that they cannot always track students leaving the country, will they please consider using the HESA statistics, which record students when they leave the country—or, even better, get the border agency to ask students as they leave whether they have completed their studies rather than just where they are going?

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend goes on to a somewhat more detailed point, which I will have to look at. I would certainly be more than happy to do that and write to her.