Oral Answers to Questions

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the police and crime commissioner for Northamptonshire on some of the innovative ideas that he is bringing forward to make the streets of Northamptonshire safer. That is precisely why we should have police and crime commissioners. We now have people all over the country who are able to respond to local needs and demands in a way that is much less top-down and centralist than under the previous system.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

11. How many student visa applications were received from India in 2012.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

There were 21,295 sponsored tier 4 student visa applications from Indian nationals in the year ending September 2012. We have cut the abuse of student visas, but continue to attract the brightest and best students from around the world.

[Mr Sharma]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he agree with the Mayor of London that the Government are doing

“things that are going to cause unnecessary alarm and prejudice against the UK”

by targeting legitimate foreign students from India?

[Mr Harper]

No, that is not what we are doing. We want to attract the best and brightest students to the United Kingdom. However, we want to combine that with dealing with the education providers that in the past were not providing education but were in effect selling immigration permits. We have dealt with the abuse and will continue to do so, but we want students from around the world to come here to use our excellent universities. The latest figures show that those numbers are up.