Immigration

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I must correct my noble friend on a matter of fact in that all our major competitors, including the US and Australia, count students as migrants. I hope I may explain why that is the case. In 2013, 115,000 people who came to the UK as students extended their stay—70,000 or so, or 62%, for further study and 38,000 for work. The Tier 4 system offers flexibility to allow these high-value individuals to extend their visa. However, not to include them as immigrants is against the practice in other competitor countries and is against our interests in making sure that we know who is here, why they are here and what they are doing when they are here.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that this is not a problem of statistics or the presentation of statistics? I entirely agree with his very welcome statement of the Government’s intentions but will he add just a few words—that in future the Government do not intend to treat students as immigrants for public policy purposes?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have to make it clear that we treat them as immigrants for statistical purposes. The point of my argument is that students come here not just for six months or so but to pursue a course of study and, following that course of study, they go on to do other things. We delude ourselves if we think this is an alternative track that we can separate out from migration in general. The point I have made is that it makes no difference to our policy position, which is that the brightest and best should come here. I did not answer my noble friend’s question on STEM. Of course, STEM subjects are important. That is why STEM students from China went up by 7%, those from Malaysia by 1% and those from Hong Kong by 20% between 2011 and 2013. We are at one on this and I wish that noble Lords would accept the Government’s good faith in that regard.