TOEIC: Overseas Students

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions, but I point out to him that, far from this being a shameful scandal, what is shameful is that this was cheating on an industrial scale. The latest National Audit Office report confirmed that abuse of the system was widespread, and the 2012 NAO report indicated that “abuse was rife”. Of course, the Home Office also not only sought compensation from ETS, but received it. It is therefore absolutely imperative that we emphasise that this was criminal activity and that people have been imprisoned. As I said earlier, 14 more individuals are facing court action as a result.

The hon. Gentleman will be well aware of the responses that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary recently gave to the Home Affairs Select Committee, and I want to emphasise his precise words. He spoke of

“a very small number, judging by the cases that have gone through the courts or come to the Home Office since 2014. Nevertheless, even if it is one individual who has been wronged, it is our duty to make sure that we are doing more to help.”

It is our duty, and that is absolutely what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary intends to do.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Yet again, I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and his colleagues on the all-party group for their tireless work on the behalf of probably thousands of innocent people whose lives and aspirations have been ruined by this fiasco. The Minister is absolutely right that shameful cheating was going on but, as the National Audit Office said, the Home Office should have been just as robust about protecting the innocent as it was in pursuing the fraudsters.

It was positive on Monday that the Home Secretary talked about creating a new opportunity for those who have been wronged to have their cases reconsidered, so it is slightly alarming that the Government seem to have moved away from that approach in the past couple of days. He was wrong to talk on Monday as though the burden of proof should still be on those facing allegations of cheating, who should be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. Thanks to the work of the all-party parliamentary group, we know that assertions of cheating by ETS cannot be relied upon on their own in deciding whether someone is guilty, and the courts have frequently rejected the evidence of ETS, just as they have sometimes upheld it.

I was going to ask when the new mechanism will be up and running, but when will we at least have clarity about whether we are getting such a mechanism? If we are to have a new mechanism, will the Minister undertake that individuals will be presumed innocent unless there is significant evidence beyond a simple and unreliable assertion of cheating by ETS? Finally, to restore credibility and trust in the whole process, will the Minister consider giving responsibility for making decisions on such cases to an independent decision maker—people with the required technical and legal expertise—totally outside the orbit of the Home Office and the ETS?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I remind him that in 2014, before his time in this House, it was Parliament that insisted that the Home Office took urgent action to address what had been revealed as widespread cheating. It is important to find a mechanism that provides redress for those who may have been wrongly caught up in this. However, the independent expert, Professor French, indicated when he studied the matter that the likelihood of a false match from the voice checks was likely to be less than 1%.

The hon. Gentleman referred to some of the subsequent court cases, and evidence of an article 8 claim of a right to respect for family or private life led the courts to take a balanced decision in many cases that it was right that individuals should be allowed to stay, and that is absolutely what we are saying in the review of the guidance. We want to ensure that the Home Office, which I absolutely believe is the appropriate place for these decisions to be made, is making sensible decisions that properly balance any belief that deception was practiced against the wider circumstances. Where the circumstances are particularly compelling, perhaps when children are involved, it is important that we look to see what more the Home Office can do to help people put their claims forward.