Chris Law
Main Page: Chris Law (Scottish National Party - Dundee Central)Department Debates - View all Chris Law's debates with the Leader of the House
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
That is a good point and some very good work is being done. I am not aware of the college that the hon. Gentleman refers to, but it clearly plays an important role. We want to see people, when they leave school, have the opportunity to move into work or move into apprenticeships—that should be a priority for us as well. The Minister for Skills will be here on Tuesday and I will make sure that he is aware of the concerns that have been raised.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
Last week, in reply to my question regarding post-study work visas, the Leader of the House stated:
“This is an area that was not in the Smith commission report.”—[Official Report, 21 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 1566.]
The right hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. Page 20 of the report, which I have here, states that,
“the Scottish and UK governments should work together to explore the possibility of introducing formal schemes to allow international higher education students graduating from Scottish further and higher education institutions to remain in Scotland and contribute to economic activity for a . . . period of time.”
Will the Leader of the House apologise for his misleading reply and offer to correct the record by offering a commitment that the UK Government will now seriously consider the issue of post-study work visas, as recommended by the cross-party Smith commission?
Chris Grayling
The only person who should resign is someone who works for the current leader of the Labour party and does not agree with him. Let us be clear. The hon. Gentleman has clearly misunderstood the point that I was making last week. There is not a recommendation in the Smith commission report that this should happen. We have implemented the recommendations of the Smith commission report about what should happen. The two Administrations should carry on talking about this area and a whole variety of areas, and we do and we will, but the Smith commission did not recommend that we implement a change on this and we have not done so.