London Metropolitan University

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the decision by the UK Border Agency to remove tier 4 sponsorship status from London Metropolitan university.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

The UK Border Agency has been working closely and continually with London Metropolitan university since March to address its systemic issues. In the most recent audit, the UKBA found concerns in three specific areas: students studying without permission to be in this country, how international students are recruited and the attendance monitoring of students. In those circumstances, allowing London Met to continue to sponsor and teach international students was not an option.

Institutions must comply with the rules, whether they sponsor 10, 100 or 1,000 international students. That includes having a system to check that students have the right visas to study in the UK, and monitoring the attendance of students. Universities must ensure that students can speak English and have the right qualifications to study at degree level. The UKBA found systemic failures that meant that London Met had not been able to ensure the appropriate admission and tracking of students from abroad.

We understand that genuine international students at London Met will be concerned. That is why a taskforce has been created, which includes the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Universities UK, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the UK Border Agency and the National Union of Students. The taskforce is working with London Metropolitan university to help genuine, appropriately qualified students find another education provider to sponsor them. Three UKBA staff are currently based in a help centre set up by London Met to support and advise students.

The UK Border Agency will contact students of revoked institutions when they curtail their leave. It is only when students have their leave curtailed that they will have 60 days to find a new institution or leave the country. This 60-day period does not begin when the institution is revoked. UKBA recognises the unique situation with London Metropolitan university and will not begin writing to students to curtail their leave until 1 October.

But let us be clear: these particular problems have been identified at one university, not the whole sector. The Government recognise the important contribution that international students make to the UK’s economy, and to making British universities among the best in the world. Britain is and will remain a top-class destination for top-class international students.

Education providers have to meet strict standards, ensuring that they provide high-quality education, and take their immigration responsibilities seriously. I am sure that the House agrees that enforcing these strict standards is an important role for UKBA, and a vital part of restoring confidence in our immigration system.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is interesting that the Minister put no figures whatever on the number of students at London Met university who have apparently not fulfilled UKBA’s requirements. One can only begin to get the impression that the Government want to pick on a university that has done good work in assisting overseas students as well as helping a lot of people into higher education who would not otherwise have had that chance.

The Minister wrote to me at the weekend and said:

“Those students however who are already attending the University and who have valid leave to remain do not have to do anything immediately.”

That is a strangely complacent answer to give the 2,600 students at London Met university who paid good money to study hard in order to achieve qualifications to go home. If they cannot find another university, are unable to complete their courses and subsequently deported, what impression will their home country have of Britain? What attitude will those countries have towards this country in future when, through no fault of their own, students have been denied the right to complete a course for which they paid a great deal of money? The image that that presents around the world is appalling—it suggests that overseas students may well be deported from this country because of a decision made by the UK Border Agency without its providing any detail about the basis of it.

Why cannot the Government do a couple of things? First, they should allow the 2,600 students to complete their courses at London Met university rather than have to try to find somewhere at the beginning of September when courses are starting in a few weeks. Secondly, they should work with the university to ensure that if things have gone wrong, they can be put right because the same thing could happen at any other college or university. One gets the impression that the decision to try to crack down on bogus English language schools some years ago—and no one has any time for bogus language schools—has been transferred to the higher education sector.

Almost a third of London Met university’s income comes from overseas students. The same figures apply to many other higher education institutions. The decision throws into jeopardy the very future of that university and damages the image of British higher education around the world. Every university in this country has cause for concern about UKBA’s decision. I ask the Minister please to think again, reverse the decision, allow those students to complete their courses and the university to continue to recruit overseas students after the systems have been put in place to ensure that the law is correctly followed. That would support Britain’s higher education sector. Instead, the Government have chosen to attack it, attacking every university and college in the process. I ask them please to change their mind.

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman asks for some figures, so let me give him some from the samples considered by UKBA. Some 101 students whose visas had already been refused were selected. Of those who had no right to be in this country studying, 25% were studying at London Metropolitan university. A wider sample was taken of two separate random groups of 300 students—600 students. More than 60% of students were involved in one or other of the problems that I identified in my answer to the hon. Gentleman’s original question. It was not a small, isolated number of students; the sampling showed significant systemic problems throughout. The hon. Gentleman appeals for all the students concerned to be allowed to carry on studying in this country, but he cannot seriously believe that someone who has no right to be here, is not educationally qualified and does not speak English to a level that enables them to benefit from a university course in this country, should be allowed to stay in this country.

The hon. Gentleman’s second main point was that the situation damages the university sector as a whole. What damages the university sector as a whole is when individual institutions do not meet their proper obligations under the immigration rules. For years, what has damaged confidence in the immigration system is that those rules have not been properly enforced. This Government are determined properly to enforce the rules set down by the House.