Cat Smith
Main Page: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)Department Debates - View all Cat Smith's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I do think the package of measures that we have announced will make a tangible difference to net migration. Taken together with the easing of exceptional factors, such as Hong Kong BNO individuals coming to the UK over the next year or two, there is good reason to believe that net migration will fall and that we will be better placed to meet our important manifesto commitment.
However, my hon. Friend is right to say that it is critical that we do so, that we should consider further measures and that we have to think carefully about how migration interacts with the British labour market. It is quite wrong to perpetuate an economic model that is overly reliant on foreign labour, with people coming here and taking jobs from British workers, and not to tackle the core issue, which is the number of economically inactive people in our country.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Our higher education institutions operate in a global market, which is why universities such as Lancaster University attract students from over 100 different countries, many of whom come, study and then return. The Minister raised the issue of pressure on public services, which makes me wonder who he thinks has been in charge for the past 13 years, but my question to him is: what consultation has he had with universities such as Lancaster University about the implications for them in respect of things like the global league tables for universities?
Robert Jenrick
We have given careful thought to this announcement, as I have said, and we have worked closely with the Department for Education, which is of course the bridge to universities. It is important to stress that we have met the Government’s target of 600,000 international students 10 years early and are likely to exceed it this year, so there is no suggestion that the number of international students is going to diminish rapidly.
What we are doing is tackling a particular issue—an unintended consequence of earlier liberalisations—which is the very significant increase in the number of dependants following international students. I would also say that it is not healthy for British universities to become overly reliant on international students. Just a few years ago, only 5% of the income of British universities came from international students. Today, it is 18% and growing. There are obviously benefits to having income from international students, but we should not be overly reliant on it.