International Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Students (S&T Committee Report)

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, we must congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on a most interesting and engaging maiden speech, which conveyed some important and compelling evidence. His speech is a contribution to a debate on a most important issue in which, remarkably, three earls are speaking. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, trained and practised as a lawyer and has spent 25 years in the insurance industry. We have just learnt that he is also a chemistry graduate. He will bring significant professional expertise to the deliberations of this House, and we can look forward to his well informed contributions in the course of what he has promised will be his regular and diligent attendance.

The excellent report of the Science and Technology Select Committee, which we are debating today, was published in April 2014. Since then, almost a year has passed, during which time the policies that the report wishes to see amended have been inflicting severe damage on our universities. The problems that the report instances have arisen from measures that have been enacted in response to an unguarded declaration of the Prime Minster concerning the number of immigrants to the UK. In a speech in March 2013, the Prime Minister declared that net migration needs to come down from hundreds of thousands per year to just tens of thousands. It seems that no serious thought had been given, in advance of the statement, to how this objective might be achieved.

In one unguarded moment the Government became hostage to the right wing of their own party. They suffered acute embarrassment at the failure to come anywhere near to achieving the declared target. They have handed ammunition to another party, which in contrast to the leadership of the Conservatives, is strongly opposed to our membership of the European Union, which allows citizens to migrate freely within its territories. The ineptitude in that connection is staggering, or at least it would be so had we not witnessed other, similar instances of such extemporary and troublesome policy declarations. The collateral damage that has been inflicted on the universities by an attempt to staunch the flow of immigrants in fulfilment of the policy has been immense.

To understand how foolish was the statement concerning net migration, one need only glance at table 1 of the committee’s report, which shows that in 2012-13 the total number of immigrants, which was roughly 500,000, was divided almost equally between immigrants from the European Union and from elsewhere. Short of leaving the Union, the Government can exercise no control over the numbers of European immigrants. Unless those people can be disbarred from coming to the country, there is no way in which net migration can be reduced to the tens of thousands. When we look at the figures for non-EU immigrants, we find that in the year in question nearly 170,000 out of 240,000 immigrants were entrants to courses at publicly funded higher education institutions. That is a fraction in excess of two-thirds. It is only by radically reducing those numbers that any significant reduction in net migration could be achieved.

In providing courses to overseas students, the university sector constitutes a major export industry. It appears that the Government have been prepared to curtail those valuable activities of the sector solely for the purpose of saving themselves the embarrassment of a failing political agenda that has arisen from a foolishly unguarded statement.

The committee’s report has urged the Government to remove students from the net migration figures. That was also urged upon the Government, almost unanimously, by those who participated in a previous debate on higher education. However, the Government have been intransigent on this point. By removing student migrants from the total, the Government could surely cut the numbers of recorded immigrants at a stroke. Their unwillingness to do so is almost incomprehensible. The only conceivable reason for not doing so is that by removing the students from the figures the Government would be denying themselves a valued opportunity to show that their policies are having an effect on the numbers of immigrants.

It may be that the Government have begun to believe their own propaganda. They may be imagining that, contrary to all the evidence, many of the non-European Union students are intent on exploiting the opportunity to come to the UK as a means of gaining permanent residence or of neglecting their studies in order to exploit other opportunities. The few instances when that has been the case have been widely publicised in support of a highly erroneous perception.

The supposition that a large proportion of the students have fraudulent intentions goes some way towards explaining the nature of the numerous additional provisions and restrictions that have been imposed upon overseas students. The conditions of the tier 4 student visas have been made increasingly stringent. The rules regarding the funds for their maintenance and for paying their university fees, which the students must have in their bank account if they are to be allowed to join a course, are now disbarring many of them. Perhaps the greatest discouragement to prospective students has been the way in which the routes to post-study work, which is so valuable to postgraduate and doctoral students, have been closed.

The increasing burden of regulations has been administered in a careless way. Changes in the regulations have occurred without sufficient prior announcement to allow the institutions of higher education to adapt to them. They have often occurred midway in the cycle of student recruitment, which has created severe difficulties for the institutions.

The rule changes have also had very distressing impacts on individual students, who have discovered that the suppositions under which they embarked on their courses are no longer valid. Thus, for example, the work experience components that may have been an attractive feature of many courses have, in certain instances, ceased to be available at a midway point in the course, in consequence of the new regulations.

One applicant to a doctoral program, with whose case I am well acquainted, was subjected to a test of his competence in the English language. This person originates in one of the central Asian republics. His written English is superb but his spoken English is hesitant and strongly accented in consequence of his lack of practice. On these grounds, he has been disbarred from pursuing his doctoral studies in the UK under the supervision of one of my academic colleagues.

I must now respond to the fact that the committee’s report is devoted primarily to the impact of the immigration regulations on the recruitment of students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. A large proportion of these students are at the postgraduate level pursuing masters or doctoral studies. In their absence, many of our MSc courses would not be viable and would have to close. In effect, we depend upon overseas students for the maintenance of our scientific and technological skills. We shall continue to do so until a scientific and technological revival in the UK allows us to fill our courses with native students. For this purpose, we should need to provide adequate funding for our postgraduate students.

I should take the opportunity now of drawing attention to the fact that we are failing to produce sufficient numbers of scientists, technologists and mathematicians to staff our universities. A cursory glance at the staff list within academic departments will reveal that the majority of them are non-native. In the past, we have been able to celebrate the fact that our academic staff have been drawn from many other nations. We have had a genius for converting such people into British citizens with strong allegiances to this country, from whom we have profited greatly. Such circumstances no longer prevail.

Nowadays, the numerous overseas recruits to our university departments are typically short-stay visitors. In some academic departments, in my experience, a staff turnover of as much as 30% per annum is not unusual. If such circumstances are to continue, and there is no indication that they will not do so, then the effect upon the quality of higher education in the UK and upon our scientific research capacity will be dire.

It is typical when discussing in this Chamber the circumstances of UK higher education to hear fulsome assertions regarding its outstanding quality and world-beating status. Such assertions usually come from people who are only tenuously connected to higher education. They relate to past glories and to their lingering effects. The view from inside could not be more different; and the well informed prognosis for higher education in the UK is a grim one, which foresees a terminal decline.