Immigration

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there are various sources of statistical information and all of them useful in the round. My noble friend talked specifically of the discrepancy between national insurance numbers and the ONS figures. That is due, in the main, to large numbers of short-term migrants who stay for less than 12 months. The official figures are based on the UN international standard definition of a long-term migrant: one who changes their country of residence for a year or more.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, yesterday Amber Rudd said that there would be further restrictions on international students coming into the UK to help to reduce the immigration target. Is the Minister aware that international students currently contribute more than £7 billion a year to our economy, delivering 137,000 jobs to our universities and their communities, that student numbers are expected to double over the next 15 years, and that some of them could come to the UK? Given that, can the Minister explain why the Home Office has declared this, whereas the three Ministers for Brexit keep going on about how important it is to trade outside the EU? This seems a bit of an own goal.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we want students here who will contribute to this country the skills that we need. In fact, there has been an increase of more than 39% over the past few years to Russell group universities. We have taken successful steps to clamp down on some of the bogus colleges that do not provide that sort of training.