Joanna Cherry
Main Page: Joanna Cherry (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh South West)Department Debates - View all Joanna Cherry's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that. As I said earlier with respect to the announcement we made today, we will be carrying out a consultation with the Department for Education that will give universities the opportunity to set out their case and refine the policy if necessary. He highlights one of the other elements of the announcement we made this week, which is clamping down on abuse. There are a small number of unscrupulous education agents who may be supporting disingenuous applications that are selling immigration rather than education. One measure we are taking this week is to clamp down on those with much more targeted and effective enforcement activity.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
My constituents do not share the Tory and Labour obsession with net migration. They understand that Scotland benefits from inward migration. In fact, Universities UK research shows that my constituency’s net economic benefit from international students is £170.8 million, which gives the lie to most of what the Minister has said. Continuing as a member of the United Kingdom is damaging Scotland’s universities, including Edinburgh Napier University and Herriot-Watt University in my constituency. First Brexit, now this. The Union has to work for both partners, so why will the Minister not sit down with the Home Secretary and consider devolving immigration policies relating to student visas to the Scottish Parliament?
Robert Jenrick
As I said many times before, we have no intention of devolving immigration policy. On the broader questions, there is no material difference between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of unemployment or economic inactivity, so there is no compelling case for a bespoke immigration system for Scotland versus the rest of the United Kingdom. The sheer scale of the number of international students who have come into all parts of the UK, including Scotland, in recent years suggests that this Government’s policies have increased the number of international students, not diminished them.