Immigration: Economic Impact

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend makes a very good point about the adverse impact of high marginal rates of taxation, but it demonstrates how the free market in Europe works in terms of free movement of labour and capital.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

Does the Minister share my concern that the Government are continuing to talk about net migration figures, yet contrary to the advice of every inquiry in both Houses of Parliament they continue to include overseas students in that net migration count? Would they accept that this is a nonsense that needs to be removed?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am very sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, but the decision to include students in net migration figures was not ours. As the noble Lord knows, they are international statistics and we need to be consistent with other states. We also need to include students in the total figure because students have an impact on the housing and services that they need to support them while they are studying. I make it absolutely clear that we welcome foreign students and that there is no limit on the number of students that we will accept.