Lord Howarth of Newport
Main Page: Lord Howarth of Newport (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Howarth of Newport's debates with the Home Office
(9 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Lord is sharp, as ever, in spotting the issue. We will have exit checks in place by the end of this Parliament, as was promised. Of the figure which I gave—about 70,000 people going missing—some of those will have reapplied to go onto the tier 4 system. Some of them will be here and working illegally. The point is that at the moment we do not know. If we counted them in and counted them out and made sure they were on the appropriate visa, we would be able to know.
In his first Answer the Minister spoke of a policy to attract “the brightest and best” to study in our higher education institutions. Does that mean that the policy is to attract academic high fliers and people of outstanding personal virtue? I do not think that is the limit of the policy, is it? What does he mean by the phrase “the brightest and best”, which Home Office Ministers invariably use when talking about this subject?
It simply reflects that such is the quality of education institutions in this country that they attract some of “the brightest and best” academic and skilled people from around the world. We want to continue to ensure that they do that and, in so doing, contribute to the success of the growing British economy.