Munira Wilson
Main Page: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)Department Debates - View all Munira Wilson's debates with the Home Office
(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Robert Jenrick
Nothing could be further from the truth. It is this Government who established the international education strategy that led to 600,000 international students coming to the UK every year. Indeed, that number is likely to grow next year. With respect to public services, we created the health and social care visa, which last year led to 76,000 applications. Their dependants were able to join them. That was 11% of all the visas issued to individuals wishing to come to the United Kingdom. We are doing everything we can to support public services, but we must address the fact that very high levels of net migration place intolerable pressure on housing, public services and integration.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Our schools are in the midst of such a chronic teacher recruitment and retention crisis that the Department for Education currently offers £10,000 relocation payments to overseas applicants to come and train as language and physics teachers in the UK, on postgraduate taught courses. If they cannot bring their families, they will not want to settle here and use the training that we have provided in our schools, where they are desperately needed. Why are the Government cutting off their nose to spite their own face?
Robert Jenrick
If the hon. Lady is referring to pressure on school places, that would be a good argument for reducing the number of dependants coming to the UK, because the children of the students will be using primary schools in her constituency.