Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

7. Whether she is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to help retain researchers from overseas who are working in the UK.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

12. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to encourage overseas researchers and innovators to come to the UK.

[The Minister for Science, Research and Innovation (Andrew Griffith)]

I hope that the hon. Members and their party will join me in celebrating just what a fantastic place the UK is for international researchers to work and live. We have one of the strongest science bases, the world’s leading universities and research institutions, and the largest ever public research and development budget. With our association with Horizon from the beginning of the year, we are central to global research collaboration.

[Andrew Griffith]

In keeping the UK an open and welcoming place to do international research, in order to deliver the Prime Minister’s vision of being a science superpower, my colleagues and I regularly meet Home Office colleagues. The facts belie the hon. Gentleman’s question: 41% of postgraduate research in the UK today is being conducted by researchers who have come from overseas.

[Layla Moran]

The Government’s recent spousal visa policy to increase the salary threshold is forcing academics and innovators to leave. I give the Minister the example of a British constituent of mine who is graduating from Oxford with a PhD, which is funded by UK Research and Innovation. His American wife, who is graduating from Bangor with a PhD, cannot live with him because the job he has been offered is paid well below the salary threshold. Why are the Government using taxpayers’ money to educate people to become highly qualified researchers if their immigration policy then forces them to leave?

[Andrew Griffith]

A fair immigration policy is absolutely part of an open Britain. It is right that those who come here from overseas and live cheek by jowl with those who clean their labs, drive their local buses and empty their bins do their fair share in contributing to the UK economy.