Visas: European Union Students

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that we have something in the region of 110,000 Chinese students at our universities. In some universities, they take up almost 50% of the places on courses such as those on artificial intelligence, stealth technology and quantum mechanics. Is she concerned that we are not clear about, or aware of, exactly where some of these students have come from? For example, postgraduates are paying £50,000 to do the courses. There are therefore risks of technology being sucked away from this country.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we have to recognise the value of research carried out by our world-leading UK universities. They are autonomous institutions; they are responsible for protecting their research and ensuring that their international student recruitment follows sustainable patterns. To help support the sector, the Government recently created Trusted Research, which is a body of information providing bespoke advice for universities to protect their research.