International Students: Contribution to the UK

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Graham Stringer

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. That is absolutely correct, and it complements what the hon. Member for Stirling said about the way our research base is threatened outside Horizon Europe.

Frankly, the UK needs all the help it can get on the international stage. Given that the Government cannot decide whether it is worth turning up to key global events such as COP and are trashing our reputation by claiming that the jury is out on whether our key partners and neighbours are friend or foe, we cannot afford further mishaps. The QS World University Rankings assess universities on six key indicators, one of which is the international student and international faculty ratio. A highly international university demonstrates the ability to attract quality students and staff from around the world, and implies a highly global outlook and diversity of culture, knowledge and thought. It makes us more competitive. It is therefore hugely important that we maintain those numbers.

As for soft power, when I was campaigning for change I met the ambassador from one of our important allies in the far east, an important economic partner. We were talking about these issues and he said, “Paul, do you realise that three quarters of our Cabinet were educated at UK universities?” That is soft power that the rest of the world would die for, and it is hugely important. The 2022 HEPI soft power index shows the benefit of international students, with 55 world leaders having taken advantage of UK higher education.

I hope the new Minister will take on board these arguments and, with his colleagues in the Department for Education, do all he can to make the case to colleagues in the Home Office that we do not want to go through this again. Let us not have that whole seven years of making the mistake, trawling back from it, and then setting an ambition to do what has been undone by such negative policies.

I hope the Minister will not only answer the questions posed by the hon. Member for Stirling, but reflect on the implications for our universities, our regional economies and our international standing if we go back on the Government’s own ambition, set out in the international education strategy.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

I intend to call the SNP spokesperson at 5.10 pm at the latest. If Members wish to speak, whether or not they have written to Mr Speaker, will they stand to indicate that? That is a help to the Chair.

Leaving the EU

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Graham Stringer

Monday 5th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the Opposition with you in the Chair, Sir David. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) for the way in which he opened up our discussion, and other hon. Members for their contributions to the debate.

The concerns raised in the petitions probably reflect the time at which they were launched, which was several months ago. The priority now is to look at the challenges that we face with just weeks to go before the deal that we need on our future relationship with the European Union has to be concluded.

On the issues raised in petition 300412, Labour pressed the Government, perhaps with some prescience, to give themselves some flexibility, when Parliament debated the withdrawal agreement Bill, and we tabled an amendment to that effect just in case unforeseen events might lead to the Government needing some wriggle room. I have to say that at that time we did not anticipate a global pandemic, but nevertheless we made that case. Our amendment was rejected, and the departure date was locked in law. The Government could have changed it before 1 July, but they did not, and neither did the European Union propose a delay.

We left the EU on 31 January, and we will leave the transition period on 31 December. We accept that completely, so I have to say that I share some of the exasperation of the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell)—if not for the same reason—at some of the contributions from Government Members and the allegations that they are making about the position of the Opposition. They should—we all should—have some humility and some honesty in looking back at the paralysis in Parliament over the last four years, and recognise that many of the delays were caused by the way in which the Conservative party was tearing itself apart on this issue and that some of those who delayed a deal being reached were those described, I think, by a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer as the Brexit extremists within his own party. Indeed, the Prime Minister was utilising the issue as he egged them on in his rise to power. But we are now into the final month of negotiations, and both the UK Government and the EU are clearly seeking a resolution within weeks to secure the deal that we need by 31 December.

The other two petitions raise real concerns, and they were clearly exacerbated by the Government’s handling of the report from Parliament’s Conservative-chaired Intelligence and Security Committee, the publication of which was deliberately and unnecessarily delayed by the Prime Minister until after the general election. It was damning in its conclusion that the Government

“had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes”.

As one of its members said when the report was published in July,

“The report reveals that no one in government knew if Russia interfered in or sought to influence the referendum, because they did not want to know.”

There are real issues that deserve consideration, but they cannot halt Brexit, as the petitioners seek, because we have, as a number of Members have acknowledged, already left the European Union. That is the result of the mandate that the Government received in last December’s election, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) mentioned, but it is only one half of the mandate. The other half is to deliver the deal that the Prime Minister promised the British people. That pledged an

“ambitious, wide-ranging and balanced economic partnership”,

with

“no tariffs, fees, charges or quantitative restrictions across all sectors”.

It pledged a deal that would safeguard

“workers’ rights, consumer and environmental protection”

and keep people safe with a

“broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership.”

That was not a proposal or a wish list, but an agreement—and one that was ready to sign off. In the Prime Minister’s words,

“We’ve got a deal that’s oven-ready. We’ve just got to put it in at gas mark four, give it 20 minutes and Bob’s your uncle.”

Originally, he said that it would be done by July, despite the pandemic, and then, forgetting his words, that it would be done by September. That came and went too, so he set a new ultimatum of mid-October, which he then dropped over the weekend after his conversation with the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen.

As a number of Members have said, businesses need clarity. The Government are providing confusion. The same incompetence that we have seen in the handling of the pandemic is now threatening jobs and the security of our country through the handling of these negotiations.

[Graham Stringer]

In previous debates during this long discussion, my hon. Friend and I have disagreed. Today, I essentially agree with the approach that he has taken, but is he not being a little asymmetric? It is his job to attack the Government and criticise and analyse what they do, but does he not feel that one reason why there is not an agreement now is that the EU has withdrawn what it offered right at the beginning—a Canada-style agreement—and has also withdrawn the recognition of this country as a third country, which was previously on offer?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. He is right that we have not always agreed on these issues over the last four years, but we are in roughly the same place now, in wanting to secure a deal by December—not just any deal but the deal that the Government have pledged. That deal was not described by the Prime Minister as something that might be achieved; he said it was there, ready to go and we just had to press the button. I will return to the specific question of Canada, because it is important.

Leaving the EU

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Graham Stringer

Monday 14th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up the debate for the Opposition with you in the Chair, Mr Davies; I am sure you will deeply regret having missed many of the contributions made earlier in the debate, knowing your views on these matters. I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for the way in which he opened the debate—he drew on points made by petitioners on both sides of the argument and on different proposals—and for the way in which he explored the complexity of the issues that we face. In that context, I draw attention to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris): the tone of our discussions is so important, particularly given some of the stuff we have seen around the precincts of Westminster over the past week. He was right to say that we are at a crossroads. People are expressing wildly diverse but sincerely held views; the reasons why people voted as they did in the 2016 referendum were sincere, too. We should respect all those views.

The petitions we have debated reflect the divisions in the country, and indeed in Parliament—divisions that have been exacerbated, not healed, by the way in which this Government have approached the negotiations over the past two years. It did not have to be like this. When the negotiations began, we urged the Prime Minister to look beyond the war in her own party, and to reach out to the majority in Parliament and across the country who respected the fact that the people had voted to leave—the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) are right about that—but also accepted that they had done so by a painfully close margin. We urged the Prime Minister to recognise the vote for what it was: a mandate to end our membership of the European Union, but not to rupture our relationship with our closest neighbours, our key allies and our most important trading partner, and certainly not to crash out of the European Union without any agreement.

The hon. Members for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) and for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns), in disagreeing with the deal, both said that it was the only deal that would be countenanced by the European Union—that, in the words of the Prime Minister, it was the only deal possible, a point that I am sure the Minister will make. But it was the only deal possible within the constraints that the Prime Minister had set herself. The European Union made it clear that there were a range of options and relationships that it was prepared to consider, but the British Government had effectively ruled those out with the negotiating terms that they had set. We regret the fact that the Prime Minister allowed the agenda to be set by what her own Chancellor described as the Brexit “extremists” within her party. She set the red line, boxed herself in and ended up pleasing nobody—neither leave nor remain voters—with the deal.

In December, with the clock ticking, the Prime Minster wasted a further month by delaying the vote on the deal that is doomed to fall tomorrow. So what is her strategy now to get the deal through? Threatening MPs and the country with no deal at all. We have made it clear from the start that we would not accept a blackmail Brexit: the choice of “My deal or no deal.” We will reject her deal tomorrow, confident that Parliament will not allow the country to leave without a deal; that is the clearly expressed view of the majority of Members of Parliament. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made clear, leaving without a deal would be a “terrible” outcome for the UK economy. He compared it with the dark days of the 1980s.

It is not enough to talk about doom merchants or the car industry “bleating”. I say to the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay that the stories about stockpiling medicines were not scare stories run by doom merchants. They were the proposals made by the Government in the preparatory papers that those supporting Brexit had urged them to prepare to ensure the country was ready for no deal. It was the Government who said we needed to stockpile medicines and food, and who said they could not continue to guarantee the power supply in Northern Ireland. That is their assessment of the position in relation to no deal.

We should recognise that the voices warning against no deal do not simply come from partisans within this place. They come from the CBI, the Engineering Employers Federation, the British Chamber of Commerce and the TUC—those who are at the coalface of the consequences if we leave with no deal. I have heard it said in this debate, and it is strongly argued by many, that if we leave without a deal, we should reclaim the £39 billion that we are to hand to the EU. Many of the people who make that argument also argue that we should strike out to secure new trade deals with many other countries around the world. The Chancellor was right to ask what country would sign up to a deal with a country that has demonstrated its ability to renege on agreements properly made in good faith.

[Graham Stringer]

We agree on tomorrow’s vote, but disagree on the objectives. I assume we agree that we all should follow the law. Does my hon. Friend not accept the view of the House of Lords Committee about where our legal obligations start and finish? We do not have a legal obligation to pay £39 billion, and the basis of trade deals is to follow the rules and the law.

[Paul Blomfield]

I obviously agree with my hon. Friend that we should follow the law; there would not be much purpose to this place if we did not accept that premise. The House of Lords Committee expressed an opinion. There are different opinions. I would probably accept that we do not need to pay all of that £39 billion. There are different views, and the hon. Member for Mansfield differentiated between some of them, but reneging on the entire £39 billion, as some Brexit extremists suggest we should, would put us in contravention of agreements.

Palestinian Children and Israeli Military Detention

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Graham Stringer

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is timely that you have called me to speak now, Mr Stringer, because I too want to speak about the case of Ahed Tamimi. I met her in her home at Nabi Saleh in November, a few weeks before she was arrested. She is an ordinary teenager who has not been groomed as has been suggested by some speakers. [Interruption.]

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Paul Blomfield]

Perhaps hon. Members will hear me out. She is an ordinary teenager living in extraordinary circumstances, to which we need to pay some attention.

Nabi Saleh, an ancient village nestling among the citrus groves on the hillside north of Ramallah, dates back hundreds of years. It was recently joined by the illegal Israeli settlement of Halamish, which has taken much of its land. Someone standing in Nabi Saleh can look across the valley to Halamish on the neighbouring hilltop and begin to understand the sense of grievance. Halamish is well irrigated, with swimming pools and a proper water supply, which come at a cost to the people of Nabi Saleh, whose water has been rationed to a few hours a week. At the bottom of the valley is a spring, which has traditionally served Nabi Saleh, but which was requisitioned by the settlement. That has led to weekly protests by the villagers over the past four years.

Last December, during a protest, Ahed’s cousin Mohammed climbed a ladder to look over a wall. A soldier immediately took aim and a bullet passed through Mohammed’s head. When the same soldier turned up in the courtyard of her home on a night raid at 3.30 am on 19 December, Ahed and a cousin went out and shouted at them. The BBC broadcast a film of the incident last week on the main news. The soldier pushed her aside, and in retaliation Ahed slapped him. It was for that that she was arrested and charged with assault. She has been in jail ever since—for the past seven weeks. She was 16 at the time of her arrest. She marked her birthday in jail and is now 17. Yesterday the case was due in court. It was postponed again and will be heard next Tuesday, so now is the time to act.

I know that the Minister knows the Tamimi family and has, like me, visited Nabi Saleh, and shares many of my concerns. In answer to questions, he has said that the Government have made representations. I should like him to outline what action the Government will take in the next week and to demand Ahed’s release. [Interruption.]

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask those in the Public Gallery not to intervene either vocally or by applause.

Science and Research

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Graham Stringer

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

The fundamental problem in relation to private sector investment in R and D is the dominant culture of short-termism in investment. People are looking for quick gains, but what we need to rebalance our economy is the long-term investment that drove economic growth in this country in the first place.

Echoing the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) made, according to a report produced by CaSE last year, “The Economic Significance of the UK Science Base”, private sector R and D output rises by 20p per year in perpetuity for every £1 spent by the Government on R and D, so there is a real return on public sector investment and it stimulates the private sector investment that the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) referred to by raising the UK’s knowledge base.

That is the real challenge, but there are also real opportunities, because as a country we have enormous strengths, above all our universities, which are highly productive. To echo again the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East made, despite representing only 4.1% of the global research community, UK researchers produced 15.9% of the world’s most highly cited papers in 2011, the last year for which I have figures available. That puts us at No. 1 in the world in the sector. Crucially—I make this point as a northern MP—at a time when we all share a concern about the regional imbalance of economic growth, universities are one of the few assets we have that are spread evenly across the country, and they are able to generate economic growth in all regions and all nations of the UK.

Clearly, universities draw their investment widely, from several sources, and not just from public funds. They have grown their own investment in R and D by 40% in the past decade and now generate more than £3.4 billion a year. However, public investment levers in other funding, and academics in receipt of research council grants have been shown to be more outward-facing and more engaged in the commercial application of their research.

The strength of that research in our universities attracts foreign investment to the UK, as well as international students. According to a British Council survey of 5,000 18 to 34-year-olds from China, India, Brazil, Germany and the US, the fact that the UK had world-leading academic research was the primary attraction for them to come here and study in our universities. Those international students bring more than £10 billion of economic benefit to the UK, including to our regional economies. I know that in Sheffield alone the net value of our international students, who are approaching 9,000 in number, is £120 million a year. Thousands of jobs depend on that money, and not just in the university sector.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a profound point about the impact that our first-class universities have on regional economic development. However, is he as concerned as I am that more than 90% of non-university research in the UK takes place within the golden triangle of Cambridge, Oxford and London, which means that, outside universities, the regions are starved of scientific investment?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am indeed, and my hon. Friend—a fellow northern MP, albeit on the wrong side of the Pennines—makes an important point.

[Graham Stringer]

I went to university on the other side.

[Paul Blomfield]

Indeed—I know that my hon. Friend is proud to be a graduate of Sheffield University. He makes an important point, and we need to be careful that even with the positive developments such as the Francis Crick Institute in London, public investment in research does not get sucked into the golden triangle that he referred to at the expense of universities around the country. As I said a moment ago, the great strength of our university network is its dispersal around the country. We need to ensure that funding for research is spread across the sector and across the country.