International Education Strategy

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) for securing this extremely important debate and for his excellent opening speech, which reminded us all of the need to champion and support our higher education sector in the UK.

We know that almost 450,000 non-UK-domiciled students study in UK universities, which contributes about £19 billion to our economy—about £95,000 per student—and supports over 200,000 jobs. It is clearly a sector that we need to support. I welcome the Government’s international education strategy and their ambition to increase education exports to £35 billion and grow the number of international students to 600,000 by 2030. I hope we see in the report a change in the mood music coming from the Government, because we need overseas students to know they will be welcomed and supported in the UK.

I acknowledge the widespread support in the sector for the strategy, but there are a number of questions, too. It would be really good to hear the Minister respond to some of the issues that hon. Members have already emphasised. First, the Government need to do something about the visa system. Students find it too complicated, too bureaucratic and too difficult to access in their own countries. As hon. Members said, there is also a huge issue with post-study work visas and how long they last, compared with what our competitors offer. We know that countries such as Australia, Canada and the US have recently seen high growth in international demand for study, while the total number of international students enrolled in the UK has stayed flat. I would say to the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) that this is a hugely important point and we need to address it.

The chief executive of Universities UK, Alistair Jarvis, said in October 2018:

“Despite the quality and popularity of our universities as destination for international students, in recent years we’ve seen a declining market share in relation to competitors.”

If the Government are to deliver on their strategy, that clearly needs to stop. We also need to do something to ensure that we have reciprocal arrangements with Europe. The strategy does not say much about European students, and I would like to hear how the Minister intends to ensure that we do not lose students coming from Europe. The reciprocal arrangements are very important, as is identifying new markets.

I was very excited to read the industrial education strategy. There was something on regional priorities and I thought, “Great! The Government are going to look at our regional universities being a priority.” When I read it, I thought, “Oh dear, no.” Our priority is regions of the world. The middle east and Latin America are important for new markets, but we need to protect the markets we have as well as targeting cold spots. We have to recognise the importance of diversity in the sector. Durham University in my constituency brings to the city huge diversity, which would just not be there without it. That is something we need to celebrate and expand.

Hon. Members have talked about the importance of soft power. I have just come back from a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Education Foundation conference. Many leaders across the world were educated in the UK, and we need to ensure that our higher education sector can attract future leaders. We need to do that by recognising the importance of global mobility for our young people as well. We need to support the British Council more effectively and look at how scholars from overseas, including postgraduate students, contribute to our research base and innovation. We need to ensure that we recognise the importance of transnational education.

In my remaining time, I thank the hon. Member for Orpington for tabling his amendment to the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill. I totally support it and hope it is approved in due course.