Immigration: Overseas Students

Lord Rees of Ludlow Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)]

My Lords, I add my welcome and congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I declare an interest as a member of Cambridge University, where, in round numbers, 20% of undergraduates and 60% of graduate students are from abroad—from the EU and the rest of the world. The proportions in other universities are not very different. Overall, the UK is second only to the US in attracting foreign students. There is a general consensus in our universities that this is a plus. Rather parochially, for instance, foreign students help sustain specialised courses that would not be viable without them, and our standing in university league tables depends on our universities remaining a magnet for international talent. It is surely a real own goal to discourage the brightest from coming here by vexatious visa requirements and a declared reluctance to let even the brightest stay on afterwards.

Under the coalition Government, as we have heard, there were clearly tensions between BIS, where the key Ministers were mindful of these issues, and the Home Office, where the priority was to cut net immigration. The restrictions generated a damaging perception that the UK was no longer welcoming. It was especially disquieting that the number of Indian students coming here halved in just four years. Students from the subcontinent no longer look towards the UK, as their parents’ generation did. Not only in India but everywhere else, UK-educated students are a big potential component of our soft power. It is a huge benefit when people we deal with around the world are familiar with the UK and have a lifelong network of contacts with this country.

Incidentally, such contacts can be especially valuable when they straddle national barriers where there are tensions or hostilities. A high-level recent instance of this, far from these shores, was the recent nuclear deal with Iran. The Iranian Minister and the US Secretary of Energy had been PhD students together in the same department at MIT. They knew and respected each other. This building of confidence surely eased the path to a difficult agreement. Surely we should promote exchanges globally.

Of course, what is looming large at the moment is the risk that our large-scale exchanges with mainland Europe will be threatened by Brexit. That is depressing because the strengthening of these links, especially in science, has been one of the really positive developments stemming from the EU. Forty years ago, our main scientific exchanges were with the US. I met my European contemporaries because we all went to the US. Now Europe-wide academia is far stronger and more interactive. Fresh graduates migrate from the UK to France, Holland, Germany and Italy, and there is a reverse flow into this country.

In my university there is an especially strong cohort of EU undergraduates, many from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and other nations with a strong academic tradition. If we did not accept them, they would go to top US universities. Surely we are right to welcome them in this country, not only for what they bring to us but because they help to develop a pan-European community and culture. Indeed, it is well known that the younger generation are more pro-EU than their elders. These students see themselves as Europeans with a shared culture. They hope that our continent can be a progressive political force in a turbulent and multipolar world, where the challenges—be they in energy or climate—cannot be tackled at national level.

Finally, I will highlight two reasons why, even with a supportive visa regime, our universities will face growing challenges. First, the status of English as a world language has long been a benefit to us but this uncovenanted advantage is being eroded by the initiation of courses taught in English in the countries of mainland Europe. These compete with us and if we are perceived as unwelcoming we will lose out to them.

A second important trend is the advent of massive online open courses, known as MOOCs. These have perhaps been somewhat overhyped. The internet can supplement but not replace the undergraduate experience. However, they have a chance of succeeding as stand-alone courses in providing vocational master’s-level courses, taken by highly motivated mature students. Residential courses in, for instance, law and business studies are current money-spinners for universities, so it concerns their budgeteers that the growing availability of MOOCs will reduce the willingness of students to pay for expensive traditional courses. The corollary of this is that universities in this country should not leave MOOCs to the Americans; they should work hard to liaise with the Open University, which has a world lead, to develop these MOOCs so that we can play a part in this growing new market for distance learning.

Even if the winds were otherwise in our favour, there would be problems in sustaining current student levels. The self-imposed handicaps of the Home Office, which aggravate the task of attracting the best students, are therefore especially to be deplored. That is why we should resonate with the concerns expressed by so many speakers today, and thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for initiating this debate.