Higher Education (Student Visas)

Debate between Luciana Berger and Richard Bacon

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bacon]

My hon. Friend is right because the uncertainty is already proving damaging, particularly on the language issue, as I will discuss in a second. In East Anglia, we see around us the huge potential for a new rebalanced economy that places relatively less emphasis on financial services and has growth in all these other sectors. We have the potential for a golden triangle between Cambridge, Norwich and Ipswich, where BT Martlesham has its own electrical generating capacity, because it uses more electricity for computing power than many small towns.

Where is the role of the universities in all this? It is nothing short of crucial. As the Minister knows, we need more skilled people—all Governments talk about the need for more skills. Our education system produces far too many people who are not equipped to go further, which was the subject of this afternoon’s Second Reading debate. Some people cannot study at university, because they do not have the basics in English, maths and science. We have a shortage of science and maths teachers, which is being made worse by a vicious circle: not enough students reaching the basic standard; not enough students studying those subjects at A-level; not enough good people therefore applying to university to study those subjects; and accordingly not enough graduates to become teachers to help solve the problem.

What is helping to break that vicious circle? The answer is overseas students. In many STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—courses are viable only due to the substantial proportion of enrolments from outside the UK and the EU. If we get all this wrong, we will damage the possibility of our economy recovering and rebalancing away from an over-dependence on financial services. One need only look to the United States to see the enormously important role of a vibrant university sector in driving economic growth.

In 2009, a study by the Kauffman Foundation on the impact of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which analysed the economic effect of MIT alumni-founded companies and their entrepreneurial ecosystem, concluded that if the active companies founded by MIT graduates were to form an independent nation, their revenues would make that nation at least the 17th largest economy in the world. The state comptroller of New York has estimated that college and student spending directly or indirectly provides nearly 500,000 jobs and generates more than $62 billion of economic activity. The comptroller of public accounts in the state of Texas has estimated that every dollar invested in the state’s higher education system eventually returns $5.50 to the Texas economy.

Why are those American comparisons interesting? The United States is the most successful higher education market in the world. It is No. 1, but which is No. 2? Where is the second-favourite destination?

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

The university of Liverpool has 3,000 international students, who generate not only £30 million of income for the university but a positive, knock-on effect for our local economy. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we do not ensure that those students can come to the UK, we will see, at a time when we are seeing cuts to our university budgets, massive impacts on local economies?

[Mr Bacon]

When funding is tricky, universities are rightly looking for other sources of income—indeed, the Government have told them to do so.

As I was saying, we are the second-biggest education market in the world.