Student Visas

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an issue with which I am familiar and there is much to commend in what he says. Certainly, it is something that I will look into.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think the Minister answered the second part of the question asked by the noble Lord on the Liberal Democrat Benches. Why are we continuing to define international students as immigrants when they are clearly not in that category? Is he aware that nearly all OECD countries that have international students in considerable numbers do not define them as immigrants or migrants? They define them in a special category as overseas students. Why do we not move to doing that?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

It is clear that the students who have these visas are entitled to work for 20 hours a week, the dependants of students are entitled to work in an unrestricted way and they are obviously users of services provided by the state. For all those reasons, it makes sense that they be included in the net migration figures.