International Education Strategy
Debate between Stephen Timms and Adrian Bailey(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Bailey
As a fellow west midlands MP, my hon. Friend will have shared the experience of the enormous investment that is coming to the region from Indian entrepreneurs who were educated in this country. That is a hard economic benefit that has accrued.
To get back to the point I was making, we have only achieved £23 billion of the benefit that was targeted way back in 2013.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important case. Has he seen the figures I have seen, which suggest that the number of students coming from India in the last year for which there is data—2017-18—is about half what it was in 2010-11?
Mr Bailey
I will touch on that when I talk about the impact the visa regime has had.
The revised target in the strategy is to have 600,000 students contributing a net £35 billion to the economy by 2030. That would require a growth rate of something like 4% per annum. Whatever the headline figures, that seems an unambitious target. It is lower than we achieved between 2013 and 2018, which in itself was a long way behind our major competitors. The target would perpetuate a system where we are lagging behind in building market share in the very important world market in education.
There is constant repetition within the strategy about the opportunities that we will have once we have left the EU. In all my dealings on this issue, I have never heard anyone say that we are losing our market share because of the EU. I have heard plenty of other explanations, but I do not want our discussion to become hostage to a more partisan debate on our membership of the EU. Whether we are in or out, it is vital that we take the right steps now to maximise the contribution of international students to our economy.