Visas: Points-based System

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for giving us the opportunity to debate the points-based visa system, which was introduced in November 2008 by the previous Government. I was unhappy about it then and I remain unhappy about it. Like everyone else who has spoken, I believe that it operates to the detriment of the arts world, our international relations, our relations with business and the strengthening of our economy. It does not make sense as currently designed.

As many know, I have spent time as the chair of the British Council. I have also chaired other arts organisations, such as the London International Festival of Theatre. I have seen at close quarters the great enrichment of our society, our creative people and our academics that comes from having the opportunity to meet and mix with artists from abroad and the great cross-fertilisation that comes about through those connections. Such contact strengthens our relations around the world and greatly enhances our creative environment here.

I shall speak first about the education world, because I am the president of the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the detriment that we experience as a result of the system. I shall speak also about the business of the visa system as a whole.

We are about to launch yet another assault on our engagement with the world by reducing substantially the proportion of international students coming to Britain. In doing so, we forget the huge and long-term benefits that come from our relationships with them. Approximately 79 per cent of students who come to this country return within five years. If we add another year to that statistic, we see that the proportion rises to 85 per cent. The vast majority go home and those who remain do so by and large as professionals who set up their own businesses and add to the enrichment of our society. Those students also bring in £5.3 billion-worth of revenue. At a time when our universities are being hit, that is very important.

The enrichment that I wish to talk about has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Parekh. It concerns the ways in which international academics come to us. Because of the skills and new knowledge that they bring with them, our own academics working with them are able to provide a plethora of courses. That would not be possible without those international academics spending time here. However, increasingly they are being put off by the way in which they are treated by bureaucracy and the difficulties involved in bringing with them their families, their partners, their spouses and their children. The complex nature of our immigration system is discouraging that important element of what is on offer in our universities.

On the problems that have been raised within SOAS, we run important pre-degree programmes for students who come from education systems around the world that are different from ours. It is therefore difficult for some of them to be assessed or to take on a particular university degree, not because of their lack of ability but simply because their own education systems are so different. We provide pre-university preparation for international students, who then go on to become students in universities in the UK. Those in-house foundation courses are provided for undergraduates and postgraduates to enable them to take on deeper educational opportunities. The programmes attract large numbers of bright students, but the system for visas is now acting as a serious detriment to their coming to Britain.

On the English language test—again, this was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Parekh—most students coming to Britain acquire the English language very quickly. To make the demand that we make for other economic immigrants—that they are able to speak English before they come—often works as a disadvantage for those coming to pre-courses or as students. These people are incredibly intelligent and acquire the English language very quickly, but our system of immigration does not recognise that. There has to be a criticism of the culture within the Home Office around this because the system does not recognise that there is a difference between students and economic migrants. Limiting the entitlement of students to work makes the UK a less attractive place in which to study.

There is a madness in all this and the system needs to be looked at holistically. We are in a very competitive situation in the offers that we make to students around the world and we are now tightening the entry requirements in such a way that many students will not choose Britain as their preferred place to come. I would like the whole system as it is currently operating to be looked at again. We are sending out messages to potential students that they are not welcome here.

There has been an inheritance of the system that was in existence, but the efforts now will deepen a system that is not working. I say to noble Lords on the government Benches that the system is ripe for reappraisal and that we should look at the workings of the points-based system to see whether it can be improved.

On a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, Goldsmith’s, one of the really fine art schools in our country, has written to organisations complaining that it needs international artists to come and be part of the programmes that it makes and offers for its art students and that increasingly it is becoming impossible to do that. That experience is shared by other schools around the country. The example given was that of Abbas Kiarostami, a film director renowned and admired throughout the world, who gives us links with a country with which we have troubled relations. He was coming to direct an opera at English National Opera. He found it impossible to get over the hurdles and felt it insulting to be expected to go through the processes that were described by the noble Earl.

I think that revisiting this system is timely. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for introducing this debate and other noble Lords who have spoken. It is truly a source of scandal that we cannot invite people into our country who are enhancing everything that we are seeking to do in the arts, education, business and the economy. Last night, I met a senior executive of Google. One of the things that he immediately raised with me was the problem that it is having in getting skilled people into this country to work. If we are upsetting a company such as Google, we are really in trouble.