Oral Answers to Questions

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman raises some really valid questions and points, which we have to build on. That is why, alongside the national cyber-security strategy, we have been working with the National Crime Agency and its international network—we have NCA officers all the way round the world. Embedded in that is the National Cyber Crime Unit. GCHQ, as an intelligence agency, works with many of the member states of the European Union and the “Five Eyes” to tackle this issue. We have seen a number of very successful operations, most recently in December, when, in an operation led by Europol, we took down the Avalanche cloud hosting service that was sending over 1 million fraudulent emails a week.

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

11. Whether she plans to exclude international students from the Government's net migration target.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

23. Whether she plans to exclude international students from the Government's net migration target.

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

I can be very clear: there is absolutely no limit on the number of international students who can come to the UK, and nor is there any plan to impose one. What we have seen this summer is that students are now compliant, and that means their effect on the net migration figures is marginal.

[Mr Sharma]

We are now coming to the end of a very successful two-year pilot allowing Chinese nationals a two-year, multiple-entry visa for the price of a six-month single-entry visa. It looks as though that will be made permanent in the new year. Will the Secretary of State commit to introducing the same scheme for Indian nationals, our best allies in trade post-Brexit?

[Brandon Lewis]

I was in India just a couple of weeks ago, and I had some conversations about the pilots we are running in China. The hon. Gentleman is a little premature, because the pilot with China is still running. It is based on a different situation from the situation with us and India, but we will look at that pilot, and I will feed back after it has ended and we have a chance to review it.