Tuition Fees: EU Students Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Tom Pursglove
Main Page: Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby)Department Debates - View all Tom Pursglove's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Tuition Fees: EU Students
Tom Pursglove Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Skidmore
When it comes to national success stories, I want to ensure that our international education strategy provides opportunities for UK students to go to every corner of the globe, not just the EU. We have provided student finance for 2019-20 and will shortly be making an announcement on 2020-21. Any future decision on access to finance for EU nationals will come later on as part of the negotiations we will take forward. The hon. Gentleman’s logic is: why not ensure that access to student finance is free for every student internationally? The Labour Front Benchers have just proposed a policy that would ensure that British taxpayers pay for European students’ fees in their entirety. I do not feel that that is necessarily best value for the taxpayer, and I am not sure his constituents would either.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Despite what all the doomsayers constantly claim, will the Minister confirm for the record what is actually happening in relation to the numbers of foreign students coming into this country to study?
Chris Skidmore
As I stated, since 2017 there has been a 3.8% increase in EU students applying and a 4.9% increase in non-EU students. It is welcome that last year we had a record number of international students, both EU and non-EU, applying to our British universities. I congratulate all universities on being able to be so welcoming. We want that to continue.