Lindsay Hoyle
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Student Visas
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Several hon. Members
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Many Members want to speak, so may I gently suggest that they speak for up to 10 minutes? Unfortunately the opening speech lasted 23 minutes, so it has pushed us back. It was a very good speech—I am not knocking that—but I remind Members that we have to stick to the timetable because we need to fit in the Front Benchers as well.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Lady has just walked into the Chamber. Normally Members would give it a little bit longer before they intervene. On this occasion she can do so, if Mr Barwell wants to give way.
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Gentleman finished his intervention just before the bell, I believe, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Gavin Barwell
I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s substantive point at the end of my speech, but on his point on skills, when there are skill needs in our economy, our starting point should be to ask, “Can we train people in this country who have not got work to do those jobs?” However, if there are high-skill gaps, we should of course bring people in if we need them.
The fourth benefit of such migration, which has not been mentioned much, is the contribution to UK science and technology. I studied natural science at Cambridge and was on the Select Committee on Science and Technology for a period, so I feel passionately about this. Some 49% of people on taught postgraduate course in maths, engineering or computer science are international students—that figure has been mentioned. Cutting down on those numbers would have a massive effect on UK leadership in science. Sir Andre Geim, the Russian-born Nobel prize winner from the university of Manchester, has said that the identification of graphene would
“probably not have happened if”
he
“had been unable to employ great non-EU PhD postdoctoral students”.
Those are the four clear benefits, but there are problems. The Higher Education Statistics Agency provides figures for enrolments, not for visa applications—enrolments are the best measure. In 2011, there was a slight decline in applications for first-year places at university from non-EU applicants. Admittedly, the position is complex, with significant country variations—there was a big increase in applications from China, but a big decrease in applications from India. I should be grateful if the Minister would offer an explanation for those significant variations if he has time. Students from different parts of the world tend to apply for different courses. Indian students are more likely to apply for STEM courses, so those variations have an impact on universities. In 2012, for the first time in 10 years, the total number of non-EU postgraduate students fell.
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) correctly identified the three issues we need to address, the first of which is bureaucracy and the process people must go through when they want to come here. I pay tribute to the Minister and the Home Secretary, because the decision to split the UKBA up into two organisations—one focuses on customer satisfaction and processing applications for people who want to come here, and the other focuses on the entirely different job of enforcement and removing people who should not be here—was the right decision, and a welcome one. However, there is more to do to improve the process and the experience people have when they apply.
The second issue is the tone and the message we send out in debates on migration—that is not totally within the Government’s control, because we must also consider the tone of the migration debate in our media. The Government have recognised the importance of sending the message that the UK is open for business, as we saw during the Prime Minister’s recent visit to India.
The third issue is policy. We have a target for reducing net migration and should ask who is included in it. One hon. Member has mentioned the Migration Advisory Committee, which has said that an equivalent reduction in all different forms of migration could reduce student migration by 87,000. I put it to the Minister that, in 2009-10, the National Audit Office identified that about 50,000 students looked as if their principal reason for coming here was work rather than study. All hon. Members would accept that there was significant abuse of the process. That happened through institutions— bogus colleges—but we all see what we might regard as serial students, meaning people who have come here and done a number of courses but still not reached undergraduate level. Clearly, their primary motivation for coming to this country is to work in the UK, whatever their visa application says. All hon. Members accept that there was potential to reduce the numbers without having an impact on the positive aspects we have discussed.
On the long-term situation, the House has made its view clear on the policy, but I am interested in what the Conservative party will say in its next manifesto. As hon. Members have said, the sector has the potential nearly to double by 2020. At the moment, about 4.1 million around the world study in tertiary education abroad. The projection is that that will go up to 7 million by 2020. We should at least set ourselves the objective of maintaining our market share, which is currently about 13%. We have done the job of squeezing down on student migration abuse, but if our objective is to maintain or grow our market share and continue to recruit the people we want in this country, it will creep up over time.
I support what my party had to say at the previous election. It was absolutely right to focus on this, and I think many Opposition Members recognise that. In the longer term, we need to think more clearly about how we differentiate to the public the kinds of immigration that we are looking to control—the bits that we do not think are good for the country and want to squeeze down on, both illegal immigration and immigration through the existing system. We should not get ourselves into a position where we are trying to control things that we all recognise are positive and good for the country. I wish the Minister, for whom I have a very high regard, the best of luck as he grapples with the difficult balance that has to be struck between ensuring that we win the global race, but address the legitimate concerns many of my constituents have about the level of immigration.