London Metropolitan University
Debate between Damian Green and Mike Crockart(12 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Damian Green
I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman has connections with an institution that is itself closely connected with London Metropolitan—I am not aware of any problems with that other institution. The message being sent out is quite clear: as I have said, Britain absolutely welcomes the brightest and the best; we want the best students from around the world coming to our universities, some of which are themselves among the best universities in the world. However, the message also has to go out to the university sector and individual students that they have to be genuine students, be able to speak English and be properly qualified to benefit from a university education in this country, and that they cannot use a student visa as a loophole in our immigration system to come here and work. That went on for far too long; now it is stopping.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Minister mentions the Home Affairs Committee report. One of its reports recently urged the Government to remove students from the immigration statistics and instead use the OECD measure. If he agreed to that recommendation, it would surely remove much of the push for such heavy-handed, rhetoric-induced action by the UKBA.
Damian Green
Of course, I reject the hon. Gentleman’s point that this is heavy-handed—and it is the opposite of rhetoric. Instead of years of Immigration Ministers from the previous Government talking tough and acting weak, we now have a Government who are acting tough as well. On the point about immigration statistics, it is a UN definition that an immigrant is somebody who comes to a country with the intention of staying for more than one year. Students who come for less than one year do not count in the immigration statistics. Students who come for more than one year do count. It would be simply perverse to say that someone coming here for a four-year course is less of an immigrant than somebody who comes here to work for 15 months on a work visa. That would be simply absurd.