Immigration: Overseas Students

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for initiating this debate, but I think my contribution to it may be slightly different from that of some of the previous speakers. I am sure that the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, will be glad of that. I should first of course declare an interest as chairman of Migration Watch, unpaid of course, and I think I should say from the outset that while I am strongly opposed to mass immigration I am firmly in favour of a moderate level of immigration, and that surely is a natural part of an open society and an open economy. So I readily join with noble Lords, all of them in fact, who have spoken of the value of foreign students to our economy and our universities, and as “ambassadors” for the UK on their return. I have met them myself all over the world. Indeed, there is very little in what noble Lords have actually said in the debate with which I would disagree.

But most of the arguments that have been made fall to the ground if the students concerned do not return home, and that is where the issue lies. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked what the problem is with that, so perhaps I can help. The problem is the elephant in the room. The elephant is that the system—and we must recognise it—for the admission of students to the UK is in recovery mode. Some noble Lords will remember that following the introduction of the points-based system by the previous Government in, I think, 2008, student visas shot up from 230,000 a year to 300,000 in one year. Indeed, in late 2009 consulates in the Indian subcontinent and China had to be closed to student applications for several months. A review conducted by the National Audit Office in 2012 found that, in 2009 alone, between 40,000 and 50,000 students had entered the UK for work rather than study, as it put it rather delicately. In other words, there was massive abuse that in the longer term could only be damaging to our reputation as a source of education. Fortunately the Government have clamped down on it; I recognise that. To a certain extent this is ancient history, but it illustrates the pressures that can so quickly develop in the system. As one noble Lord mentioned, 850 bogus colleges have been closed down. But that is the background which cannot be ignored, and it seems to be the reason that underlies the Government’s policy, which we definitely support.

Despite that chequered but important history, the present regime for foreign students is actually a generous one. There is no limit on the number of genuine students—I stress the word “genuine”. There is no cap on those who wish to switch to work provided that it is graduate work and that they earn £21,000 a year. So I have to say that I am rather surprised by the continuing barrage of negative publicity about the offer that the UK gives to foreign students. It is not coming from the Government and it is certainly not coming from Migration Watch. It appears to be coming from the sector itself, but that is surely damaging to its own interests. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, mentioned, perceptions are very important. If all people hear is constant complaints from every academic in human history, they will think that something is seriously wrong. Would it not be much better for the sector to emphasise the positives of our offer and, where there are problems, to sort them out privately and quietly with the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, suggested?

Underlying this is a disconcertingly wide gap between the inflow and outflow of students as measured by the International Passenger Survey—if that is correct. The average inflow for the past four years has been 127,000 and the average outflow 47,000, so there are 80,000 students a year over those four years for whom there is no evidence of departure—there is no doubt about that much. That is a huge number; it is about a third of all non-EU migration. It is quite possible that the exit checks that have just been installed show that that has been an undercount, but we will see. Rumours of 1% are extremely unlikely—that would mean that the IPS was missing 75,000 students a year, which is hardly possible. The prudent course has to be to await clarification before revising policy in either direction.

At least 10 noble Lords have called for the student numbers to be taken out of the immigration statistics. That is the worst possible route to take. As everyone knows, an international migrant is defined on a basis agreed with the United Nations. That is why all our competitors—yes, all our competitors—include them in their migration statistics. Indeed, it is the key to understanding demographic change and we must not fiddle about with it for other purposes. In any case, it would not work. The press would immediately add in the figures for students and the Government would be perceived as fiddling the figures on a matter of real importance to the public. They are right to rule it firmly out.

There have been a number of calls to widen the scope of post-study work but it is interesting to note that, when it was made a requirement that such work should be at graduate level, the number of foreign students taken in by employers fell from 55,000 in the one year to 6,000 in the next. It seems that industry was not desperate for their services.

I conclude as I began: I favour foreign students, provided that they are genuine. We must make sure that they are. In practice, that will turn on developing the exit checks which are now at a very early stage.