Global Migration and Mobility (EUC Report)

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said earlier that the most sympathetic Ministers seemed to get the difficult briefs. I am not sure that that was true of the Labour Government but it may be true of this Minister.

I congratulate my noble friend and the committee on the report, and particularly on Chapter 6 on the development impact because I think that that is the most difficult area of all. However, I, too, shall concentrate today on students, which although last on the list of contents is perhaps the most urgent topic and therefore justifies a second or third debate.

As we have heard, the Government are sticking to their view that they must tighten their grip on immigration but that genuine students continue to be welcome. I shall examine that paradoxical statement again in a moment, but I recommend the Government’s response to the Commons BIS Committee report, which is a good summary of the position. It says:

“The Government’s success in reducing abuse of student visas … means that we can now look forward to a period of policy stability on student migration policy”.

A policy of stability may be welcome as a statement of intent but it hardly corresponds to the situation at present and it shows that wishful thinking is being permanently built into the Government’s plans.

In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, I think that Universities UK may have lost the narrow technical argument on definition, because the international UN definition has to apply. Nevertheless, it should go on making the case that students are not migrants but visitors, and that they must, as far as UK policy is concerned, be treated entirely separately. The words of the committee on this are:

“We recommend the removal of international students from the public policy implications of the Government’s policy of reducing net migration”.

Our image overseas as a favoured destination—remembering that we start with a huge advantage as the home of the English language—has already taken a blow and we have to redress the balance. Relatively few students become overstayers and the number who reside permanently is negligible, perhaps 1%. I urge the Government, yet again, to recognise the importance of foreign students to our future international diplomacy as well as to a business which has been valued at at least £8 billion.

As the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, has said, one area of disagreement is the discrepancy between the HESA figures for applicants versus those for entrants. The Government cannot claim that the numbers of non-EU students are going up because while the HESA figures show an overall increase, Universities UK has shown that these are inflated by new entrants from previous years. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has also made that point.

At another level, there is the difference between universities on the one hand and colleges and language schools on the other. UKBA understandably came heavily down on the colleges because most bogus students came from that sector but, having eliminated the bogus colleges, they are continuing to come down on the genuine ones which have proper accreditation. A high proportion of non-UK students used to come from these colleges and this number is fast decreasing.

As the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, added, language schools are also an important sector feeding in to higher education. We want to keep those students but they are also suffering. Language students who want to pursue their courses are told to go home and reapply, which of course drives many of them elsewhere because there are plenty of welcoming arms. The Home Office must surely by now have seen the knock-on effects of its tier 4 visa policy.

The Minister already knows that I intend to raise some of these concerns with him next week. He has kindly agreed to see me in relation to the position of South London College, which has suffered no less than an 80% fall in its tier 4 recruitment in the past 18 months, including a 100% loss of all its Indian students. I mentioned in our previous debate that I am on the advisory panel of a related college in Nepal which has several links with colleges in the UK, and I am well aware of the drastic effects of visa control on applications all over the sub-continent.

After the number of Indian students fell drastically last year by 23%, the Prime Minister had to make what one might call a coalition statement during his India trip in February. Perhaps he was prompted by the Mayor of London, who regularly has strong views on this subject. He said that this country welcomes Indian students, even though on the evidence we were turning them away. I am not denying that the majority of these in the past had failed the new tests but, judging by the evidence I have, it seems that many more genuine students are being turned away.

I can understand the Fresh Start group and others raising concerns about immigration—it is a big concern—and the Prime Minister is steadily moving towards their position. The latest Conservative Party bulletin that I have seen shows how hard it is working to avoid becoming a “soft touch” among its supporters. I accept that the UK, in this as in its foreign policy, is punching above its weight because it is a net importer of migrants and we have a high number in proportion to our population. However, this must be seen as a positive and not a negative. Britain has built up an international reputation for receiving migrants. What would have happened to so many of our Nobel prize winners who came here destitute in the 1930s and since if they had been turned away, refused visas or denied benefits?

Certainly we have to reduce absolute numbers and the events in Sweden are a current warning to all of us as to what could happen in the EU. However, I repeat, we must not make students and our reputation suffer because of our immigration policy.

I said last time that colleges which had passed all the eligibility tests and had acquired the correct certificates were still being harassed, and this remains the case. The UKBA or its successor even requires them to act as agents and informers, opening files and reporting on the movements of students as though they were potential enemies of the state. The BIS Committee, Boris Johnson and many others have already made the point that current controls on student migration are hitting our exports hard, and we cannot afford to lose our status internationally when so many other countries are increasing their numbers of students. However, it is good news that the Chinese are sending more students, and it is also good that completing PhD students are being allowed to stay for up to 12 months after graduation, and that more MBA graduates will be allowed to remain. The Minister may well be able to give us more examples of how the present trend can be reversed.

I turn briefly to the committee’s other conclusions, although this is a vast subject that we cannot cover today. I agree that while the Government make obeisance to the wisdom of the EU’s global approach, the report describes it as “too diffuse” and recommends that the Government should co-operate still more closely with Schengen and some of the useful European agencies such as FRONTEX. Again, the threat of opting out, as in the European arrest warrant and the whole of the justice sector, seems to be an important part of the Conservative Party’s solution to its internal troubles. One wonders what price it ultimately will pay within the coalition. Many people would like to see more genuine participation in Europe and less of what the Government call “exercising influence on decisions” of other EU members. We cannot get away with that attitude. I urge the Government to pay more attention, for example, to implementing as well as signing and ratifying the trafficking and domestic worker conventions.

On the EU resettlement programme and the gateway programmes, I recall that the UK was one of the slowest to co-operate with UNHCR’s excellent resettlement work. Can the Minister tell us what the current position is? What is the annual UK resettlement quota, and will the Government use one of the UN or EU programmes to accommodate the 600 Afghan interpreters, to whom we owe such a lot?