International Students: Contribution to the UK

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Robert Halfon)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) on a very thoughtful speech. I love what he said about science and technology. I have a picture of President Kennedy on my wall in the Department for Education, because he put a man on the moon, and moved the whole engine of government, universities and science to achieve that purpose.

There has been a fair bit of doom and gloom, but our higher education sector has an extraordinary reputation. Four of the top 10 universities in the world are in the UK. It is no surprise that Britain is such a destination of choice for students around the world. We had the ambition of housing at least 600,000 international students in the UK per year by 2030, and we met it, for the first time, nearly 10 years early. There are 68,180 international students in Scotland. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) talked about EU students, but my figures show that, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, EU-domiciled student entrants increased by 4% in 2021 compared with the previous year. I am guessing that the hon. Lady’s figures are based on UCAS applications.

It has rightly been highlighted that international students contribute £25.9 billion to the economy, which is quite extraordinary, and are the source of over 60% of the UK’s education export earnings. Every resident is about £390 a year better off as a result. On the question asked by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), the net economic impact per student was estimated to be £95,000 per typical international student in the 2018-19 cohort. In other words, every 11 international students generate £1 million-worth of net economic impact for the UK economy over the duration of their studies.

I want to be clear that the target remains 600,000 students. That is something to be proud of. I am as keen on soft power as the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). She gave an example of meeting somebody who had studied in the UK. I have met many people as well. When I was over in Taiwan, I met an incredible person who started showing us slides of the Beatles. He was in charge of national security, and we were wondering what was going on. He said, “I went to the University of Liverpool, and that is why I love your country.” I get it. I have seen people from Iraq—I know that the hon. Member for Stirling has been involved in Iraq. I have seen the incredible work that goes on with Kurdistan in northern Iraq, particularly; so many of the leaders came to this country. I completely understand why international students are so important. I am a liberal interventionist: I believe in soft power as much as hard power.

I accept what the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North West, said about relying too much on one cohort, or on people from certain countries. Just as a business should be cautious about being overly reliant on a single supplier, universities should be cautious about having a single source of income.

I remind Members that the Government appointed Sir Steve Smith as the UK’s international education champion. His job is to make the most of the opportunities in key priority regions. We have roughly 84,000 Indian students in our country, and he is exploring the opportunities for UK skills partnerships.

The Government should be proud of the Turing scheme. I know it is for students further afield, but it supports our students to go to places such as Germany or Spain, and all over the world. The Turing scheme is much wider than the Erasmus scheme and has students in vocational education. Some £100 million is being invested in it, and it has more than 38,000 students—not just from universities, but from further education providers and schools.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) talked about Glasgow City College in his constituency, which was very interesting.

[Carol Monaghan]

City of Glasgow College.

[Robert Halfon]

Sorry, the City of Glasgow College, which has worked with Indonesian polytechnic colleges on skills for the maritime sector. That is what motivates me—skills and apprenticeships, and higher education—which is why the Turing scheme and other schemes are so important.

Of course, there are pressures on the overseas aid budget. I absolutely get that, and hopefully things will return to normal as soon as the financial conditions allow, but look at what we are doing to support Ukrainian students in the UK. A lot of work has gone into that. There is a twinning initiative set up by Universities UK and the Cormack Consultancy Group, which partners with a Ukrainian university. There are partnerships with higher education providers, including the University of Glasgow, Cardiff University, Queen’s University Belfast and Sheffield Hallam University, and there is the work of the University of Stirling. I saw that it won sporting awards not so long ago, and it is offering Ukrainian students the opportunity to apply to transfer on to courses matching their original programmes.

In England, we have extended access to higher education student support, the home fee status tuition caps, advanced learner loans, and further education funding for those who are granted leave under one of the three schemes for Ukrainians that have been introduced by the Home Office. If that is not soft power in action, I do not know what is. It is all about spending our overseas aid money wisely, and migration changes.

I want to make it absolutely clear in my last few seconds that we remain committed to working towards our ambitions, which are set out in the international education strategy, to host at least 600,000 students per year in the UK by 2030. We will continue to welcome and attract international students to the UK in order to enable our domestic students to experience and hear fresh perspectives, and to allow our HE sector to thrive.