Immigration Bill
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
It is interesting that we started this debate by being reminded that the Home Secretary was busy distancing herself from the disgraceful ad vans. It is just unfortunate that she has applied the same school of politics to developing the Bill, which is absolutely from the ad van approach to tackling immigration. In her own words, she was trying in the Bill to create “a really hostile environment” for migrants, and not just illegal ones—before the Minister intervenes. The narrative surrounding the Bill is creating a hostile environment for all migrants and a toxic background for a sane debate about immigration.
Let us look at some of the provisions. I will not go into the detail on appeals, because many others have, but what sort of approach is this? The reason we have too many appeals is that too many initial decisions are wrong. The majority of entry clearance decisions are wrong. The appeals system is a safety valve. What approach is it to take away the safety valve, instead of dealing with the problem at the heart of it?
I find the stuff on landlords curious because I thought that this was the Government who had launched the red tape challenge. Where are we now on the red tape challenge? We are creating a needless bureaucracy for landlords who, in large numbers, have said they do not want it. Who will train our landlords to become immigration experts? Where are people to live while they wait for a decision from the Home Office? The Minister represents the party that proclaims itself to be the party of the family. What about the family waiting for mum’s spousal visa? Where will they set up home? According to the Bill, the landlord would breach the duty if he or she entered into an agreement to allow a disqualified person to occupy a property whether or not that person was named on the tenancy agreement. This is ill thought out, with very negative social consequences.
I want to concentrate on NHS charges and on the proposals to introduce a health surcharge for non-European economic area temporary migrants. This was proposed before today’s research was published on the actual cost of NHS use by visitors and temporary migrants. Sadly, it is too reflective of the non-evidence-based approach that the Government are adopting to this Bill; the prescription has been set out before the doctor has diagnosed the condition. We have some of the facts now, but there are question marks over some of the evidence in the report which I would like to share with the Minister.
The report says:
“We have reviewed the medical literature to try to find evidence of how visitors and migrants use healthcare compared to the host population…The findings suggest overall that recent migrants are less likely to use UK primary and secondary care services than UK born residents…At this time, as a starting point, we have therefore assumed in the model that migrant propensity to use NHS services is equivalent to the non-migrant population.”
What does that mean? It means, “we have found one thing but based all our modelling on something else to exaggerate the costs.”
Similarly the independent assessment says that the health surcharge will generate £230 million a year. But we understand that the level at which it will be set is £200. On the basis of information that I have received from the Library this afternoon, that will apply to 552,000 people. The cost would be £110 million a year, less than half the level suggested in the report.
The figure of £2 billion for the cost of visitor and migrant use of the NHS in England includes EU and EEA nationals of course, but it also includes workers who already pay national insurance contributions and taxes, and students, and I will come back to students in a moment. Whatever it is, it is not
“The true cost of health tourism”
as the Daily Mail described it today and as, I am sure, a number of Government Back Benches would characterise it in their contributions.
I go back to the Home Secretary’s opening remarks, where she talked about the cost of those who in the words of the research
“conceal the fact that they have come to the UK specifically to use NHS services that they are not entitled to access for free”.
The Home Secretary said that that cost was several hundred millions of pounds. I hope she will take the opportunity to correct the record because the report says that the cost is “very uncertain” but is estimated to be about £70 million within a range of £20 million to £100 million, or 0.06% of the NHS budget.
Of course there are already rules on charging people who are not ordinarily resident in the UK for using the NHS. The evidence on how the system is working is patchy, but the NHS appears to be recovering gross income of about £15 million to £25 million, less than 20% of the estimated chargeable costs. Add in the costs of administering the current system—estimated at over £15 million—and the current overseas visitor charging system may be generating a small profit, according to the Department of Health’s own assessment. Does the Home Secretary look to improve the current system? No, she introduces a new one without a full impact assessment of how much it will cost. This really is dog-whistle politics at its worst, building policy on prejudice rather than on facts and setting it in the context of a falsely constructed debate around health tourism.
That is clearly illustrated by the fact that, according to the Office for National Statistics, the majority of the people who will be impacted by the health surcharge will be students. I was fortunate enough to host a breakfast seminar before the summer recess at which the guest speaker was a former higher education Minister in one of the Australian states. He said that he was delighted to be in the House of Commons because it gave him the opportunity to congratulate the Home Office on its work, which had led to a significant increase in the number of students choosing to study in Australia rather than in the UK.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that there is a danger that, by placing yet more strictures on potential international students, the Bill will send a signal that they are not welcome in the UK? This is such an important export industry for the UK, if I can put it like that, and it is important that the mood music—
Student Visas
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(10 years, 12 months ago)
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Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
I would like to join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) and other colleagues on securing this important debate. He made some important points, as have all the subsequent speakers. It is good to see cross-party agreement emerging that we have to remove students from the immigration target in domestic policy.
With two universities and numerous independent colleges in Oxford East, my constituents are among the hardest hit by the ill-judged policies on student visas and immigration that the Government have brought in. They have inflicted serious damage on the reputation and attractiveness of the UK, and on the economic and cultural contribution that overseas students, and those who teach them, make to our country. The Government’s policies amount to a perverse and stupid act of economic self-sabotage. They hit a part of our economy where Britain in general, and Oxford in particular, have a strong global strategic competitive advantage. There is a logical contradiction in the Government protesting that there is no cap on student numbers, while persisting in including student numbers in their overall target of reducing net immigration to tens rather than hundreds of thousands. They find it so difficult to control other areas of immigration, including illegal immigration, that there is continual downward pressure on student numbers.
We are fortunate in Oxford to have many high-quality institutions. It shows how ludicrous this policy is if we imagine it being applied to another area; for example, to our Mini plant—to manufacturing, as opposed to educational exports. Imagine a Government who have an overall limit on manufacturing exports because they do not want too many foreigners getting their hands on our goods. As the number of BMW Minis being exported falls because overseas dealers worry that they will not be able to fulfil orders, the Prime Minister flies out to the far east and attempts to reassure people that while he is determined to bring down net manufacturing exports, there is no cap on the export of Minis! Such a policy would be barmy, way beyond swivel-eyed, and yet economically that is exactly what the cuts in overseas students amount to.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that it is simply no good for the Prime Minister to be going on these visits overseas supposedly to increase our exports when one of our very best exports, higher education, is being undermined by the Government’s policy?
Damian Hinds
Thank you.
All in all, about one fifth of the top 100 universities and about one fifth of the top 50 business schools in the world are ours, and of course we have that great asset, the English language.
The sector has other advantages. The first and most obvious is export earnings and the jobs it supports in this country, but it is also important in the battle for talent, in bringing into the country the people we need to help our economy succeed. It also helps with what people have called soft power—or, as I would prefer to describe it, the promotion of Britain abroad and the fostering of business and cultural links throughout the world.
The sector has several secondary advantages. For one, unusually among the key growth sectors, its employment and economic growth prospects are well distributed throughout the UK, not concentrated in one place, such as London. Secondly, university rankings depend on having a certain proportion of foreign students at a university, because international rankings consider that if a university is not good enough to attract foreign students, it is probably not very good. Thirdly, having a vibrant, cosmopolitan HE sector helps to reinforce several other growth strategy objectives, particularly to bring forward research and development in key sectors and to make this country the headquarters location of choice for multinationals.
As many hon. Members have said, this is a growing world market. In 1980, about 1 million students were enrolled in institutions outside their country of origin, but by 2010 that figure was 3.3 million. We know that more recently the compound annual growth rate trend—obviously it has moved a bit in the last couple of years—has been about 7%, which is a strong growth rate for an attractive industry. According to the McKinsey report on the seven long-term priorities for the UK, if we can hold our share—grow it as the market grows—and harvest just half of the benefit, it would be worth an additional 80,000 jobs in the country by 2030.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that holding that share is becoming more difficult, because of the challenge from countries such as Australia and Canada, and that the Government should be strengthening our universities’ ability to attract overseas students, not making it more difficult, as they are doing at present?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady brilliantly anticipates my next point. Of course, she is absolutely correct. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) said, we are, to coin a phrase, in a global race, and we are not the only ones who have spotted that this is an attractive sector and who are doing things differently, as we will continue to do in order to protect and grow our own share. The most obvious competitive set are the Anglophone countries, led by the United States, but including Canada and Australia. Increasingly, however, non-English speaking countries are offering English-speaking courses. The third competitor is potentially the biggest, and that is the choice of staying at home. In China, India, Nigeria and elsewhere in the world, there is a big business opportunity in attracting students from those countries to stay in institutions there. So, yes, we have to redouble our efforts all the time in order not only to forge ahead, but just to hold our own.
We should be talking always about quality higher education, pre-higher education preparation and certified colleges. These institutions should not be selling visas; they must be selling education, and we know that there have been recent substantial abuses. The National Audit Office says that in 2009 up to 50,000 alleged students were here primarily to work, rather than study. We had this cadre of serial students who were forever renewing their visas without showing any substantial progress in their studies. Clearly, if we are serious about curbing immigration in what has become a chaotic situation and about reducing the numbers and getting rid of abuse, we have to tackle the student visa route.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) on opening this important debate, and I congratulate him and others on securing it.
The wording of the motion says it all. Five parliamentary Committees—the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, the Select Committee on Home Affairs and the Public Accounts Committee in the Commons, as well as the Science and Technology Committee and the EU Sub-Committee on Home Affairs, Health and Education in the other place—have all arrived at the same conclusion and the same recommendation. They are united in their belief—it is a considered belief, based on the vast amount of evidence they have taken—that including students in net migration numbers is the wrong thing to do, for a number of reasons, and that the Government should reverse that decision. The reason for that belief is obvious. The students we are talking about are not migrant workers. They have paid to come to the UK to study. They have chosen to invest in the UK and are sponsored to remain only for the period of their studies.
I speak as an MP for a constituency that benefits from the positive contribution that overseas students can make to university life and the wider community. According to the University of Sunderland’s annual review, more than 2,600 overseas students were enrolled in taught undergraduate or postgraduate courses last year. What does that mean for the university and the wider city? Those students are paying their fees, which are crucial to the university as a means of investing in the facilities and opportunities they can provide to all students, particularly as grants are repeatedly cut, but there are wider benefits too. Those students need places to live and therefore pay rent to local private landlords, usually through local letting agents. Those students need to eat and therefore spend money in local shops and restaurants. They probably need coats and gloves—they have probably also needed wellies over the last couple of years—to deal with the harsh north-east weather, and they will obviously buy those in local shops. Those students will also want to have a good time, as do students the world over, spending money in local cinemas, bars and clubs, and going to gigs, football matches and so on. They might even need books and stationery, which they will buy from local bookshops and stationers.
According to evidence that the university submitted to the Home Affairs Committee when it considered this issue in 2011, overseas students bring an income to the university of £15 million in tuition fees and £1.5 million in accommodation fees. The university estimated the additional income to the city to be around £10 million a year. That figure is probably a conservative estimate, given that it amounts to only £385 a month or so for each student, and we know that many international students who come to the UK are from pretty wealthy families—after all, how else would they afford the large up-front fees that they have to pay? That is probably reflected in the revised estimate that I recently received from the university, of £37 million of total benefit.
When international students come to the University of Sunderland, they do not just bring their wallets; they bring a wealth of culture, which adds to the diversity of the university’s campus. That can be seen in the development of the various student societies—they include the Hong Kong and Malaysian society, the Nigerian society, and the middle east and north Africa group, to name but a few—but it is a two-way street. The university encourages international students to experience the culture that the north-east has to offer, such as Washington old hall in my constituency, which has an obvious attraction for students from the United States, and the various other cultural and historical activities that the city of Sunderland and the whole region have to offer.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend is making an important point about students in the north-east adding to diversity—a diversity that would not necessarily exist without them. Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that the number of new entrants—particularly new international student entrants—is reducing. Does she agree that the Government are being a bit complacent and are not factoring in the positive contributions that students make to areas such as ours?
Mrs Hodgson
That is exactly the nub of the matter. We have to factor in those extra elements, including the contribution that such students make to the local economy, as well as—I will come to this point—the long-term benefits from those relationships and links in the years to come.
Another great project at Sunderland university is the international buddying programme, in which students at the university pair up with international students to provide them with advice on what they can experience in the region. The programme enriches the experiences not only of the international students but of their buddies from this country. When the students are visiting regional tourist attractions such as Washington old hall or Durham cathedral, they inevitably spend money in the local and regional economy.
I understand that some programmes run by the student union have involved international students volunteering with local community organisations such as Age UK. This all contributes to giving students a great experience while they are over here, which means that they will develop an affinity with the UK, and with the city and region in which they stay. We have to remember that many of these students come from well-connected families, and that among them will be the political leaders and captains of industry of tomorrow. It is therefore crucial to our long-term diplomatic and economic relationships with their home countries that we warmly welcome these young people, rather than making them feel unwanted, as this Government are undoubtedly doing at the moment.
That is particularly important in the north-east, where international links and trade and exports are fundamental parts of the economy. The independent “North-east Economic Review” recently commissioned by the local enterprise partnership and authored by my noble colleague Lord Adonis reported that the north-east is one of the leading exporting areas of the UK, with over 1,500 companies exporting goods. In 2011 and 2012, it was the only region in England to achieve a positive balance of trade in goods, with figures of £2.5 billion in 2011 and £4.8 billion in 2012. So we do well, but we are reliant in many ways on orders and investment from overseas companies. The role that our universities play in keeping and creating those relationships is crucial.
One country that often comes up when we talk about the need to get more people over to the UK is China. The University of Sunderland works hard to attract Chinese students, as do other higher education institutions. I was lucky enough to visit China in September 2011. I visited the offices of the University of Sunderland in Beijing, where I was able to talk to the local staff there about the work they do. Their biggest concerns by far were the new visa requirements, coupled with the way in which some Chinese students they had recruited were treated at customs when they arrived here in the UK.
Both those factors are a source of humiliation to students. What will happen when word gets out that the UK does not want them and that it will put them through that kind of experience? Students who would have come to the UK, and who might well have come to Sunderland, will go elsewhere in the world. They want to learn and develop their English, and they will go to the USA, Australia, New Zealand or Canada, all of which exclude students from their migrant figures and are currently welcoming them with open arms. Those countries are benefiting from our loss.
While I was in China I also visited Suzhou, where the University of Liverpool has established a joint campus with a local university, with the aim of providing opportunities for UK students to visit an economically and culturally significant area of China as well as providing a form of embassy or advert for its UK institution. I met a young man from Suzhou who had been studying computer science at Liverpool and is now doing his postgraduate qualification at University College London. That shows that the process definitely works. The development of more such partnerships and recruitment drives in a country with which we desperately need to build links is surely at risk, given the way in which this Government’s attitude towards overseas students is now seen in that country, and undoubtedly in others.
The University of Sunderland posed two questions to me, which I believe cut to the heart of this debate. I would be grateful if the Minister could address them in his response—if indeed he is listening to what I am saying. First, can the Government meet their net migration targets without reducing the number of international students coming to study at British universities? My suspicion is that they probably cannot, and are therefore knowingly and willingly accepting the devastating economic impact that this policy will have on localities and regions, particularly those with a track record of success in global enterprise.
Secondly, what is more important to this Government: economic growth and sustainability or a falsely painted picture of immigration and immigrants that includes those who choose to come and invest in the UK and bring substantial short and long-term economic and social advantage to our country? I am sure the Minister will say that it is the former, but actions speak louder than words, and the actions of this Government firmly suggest that their priority is political headlines, rather than what is right for our higher education sector and for the country.
Of course we must tackle bogus colleges and bogus students. Everyone agrees on that. I am afraid, however, that such action is being used as a smokescreen to justify this damaging and short-sighted policy. Well, the Government are fooling nobody. We all know that this is about using overseas students to reduce the net migration figures in order to fulfil a promise made by the Prime Minister that he would otherwise be unable to fulfil. That is a disgrace, and it must stop. I hope that this debate will spur a change in policy and a more grown-up and thought-through approach. This Government are well-practised in the art of the U-turn, and I hope that we will see one being performed on this issue sooner rather than later, before too much more damage is done to our universities and our international reputation.
Alcohol Strategy
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs May
My hon. Friend is right to say that we need to implement the strategy so that it has the impact that we want on the cheap alcohol and bulk discounts that lead to the sort of behaviours that I described earlier. When we consult about dealing with bulk discounts, I am sure that the very point that she makes will be raised. Obviously, we will consider that carefully.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I point out to the Home Secretary that part of the success of the Durham Best Bar None scheme was effective policing, which is now being put at risk because of cuts to Durham constabulary’s budget. We all want responsible pricing of alcohol, and there is much that I welcome in the statement. However, the right hon. Lady has not explained why it was necessary to interrupt the Budget debate today to make the statement. Many of us are here to speak for our constituencies and outline how the Budget has had a negative impact on them. I have a specific question. A real problem in Durham is special promotions by pubs aimed at students and young people. Will they be able to continue?
Mrs May
The hon. Lady made several points. I fully recognise the role that the Durham police played in the work that is being done there. It was a collective operation through licensees, the police and others. I am very pleased that Chief Constable Jon Stoddart of Durham, who is the ACPO lead on the matter, has said that he greatly supports the policy. He said that he welcomed any new approach
“that will help reduce the availability of cheap alcohol… and reduce pressure on the police.”
That is exactly what the strategy will do.
Student Visas
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs May
We will make absolutely clear when the new post-study work route proposals will be implemented. Students will have reached various stages in their courses, but there will be a specific point at which the post-study work route requirement is introduced. Those who are already studying in the UK and may have expected to stay will still be able to stay, provided that they obtain graduate-level jobs. It is the qualification level for the jobs that will change.
As for the arrangements for student entrepreneurs, we are considering how best to position them in the immigration system. I hinted earlier that they might form part of the post-study work route, but we might consider other routes. The intention is to enable a student who is graduating from university and who has a first-class idea to set up a business and put that idea into practice, and I think it right for us to do so.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I understand the right hon. Lady’s concern to reduce abuse in the visa system, but what is she doing to ensure that the measures announced today do not simply send a message to bona fide students applying to legitimate institutions that they are not welcome, especially as that would create huge problems for our excellent universities and colleges?
Mrs May
What I am doing at every possible opportunity is saying that our universities are still open for business to overseas students. I have said at every stage, both throughout the statement and in response to a number of questions, that the whole point of what we are proposing is to protect the universities while dealing with the bogus colleges. I think that is the right approach, and I hope it meets with agreement across the entire House.
Identity Documents Bill
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Roberta Blackman-Woods
I am very grateful. The Home Secretary has just announced that 67 people in my constituency were made redundant last week because the Government are not continuing identity cards. What efforts will her Government make to get jobs for those people who lost them this week, and for those who are likely to lose their jobs because the Government are not going ahead with the second generation biometric passports?
Mrs May
If I can just correct a slight inaccuracy of terminology in the way in which the hon. Lady referred to the job losses in Durham, the people concerned were temporary staff on short-term contracts and they have been released early from those contracts. There are implications to abolishing the previous Labour Government’s scheme but, as the hon. Lady may know, we as a Government have considerable proposals for helping people who are unemployed to get into work. Our single work programme, which will replace the previous Government’s proposals for helping people into work, will give people much more focused individual help on getting them into the workplace and ensuring that they are retrained and given the skills that they need.
Alan Johnson
That is a sensible suggestion, except that some people who have ID cards do not have passports. They are part of that 20% of the population who generally will not have a driving licence or bank account. We used to call them the socially excluded—indeed, the Government are supposed to be wedded to the idea of helping them—and many of them will not have that facility because they do not have a passport, but my hon. Friend’s point is relevant, and I shall address it further shortly.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary must also cost in the additional cost in unemployment benefit that must be paid to my constituents if they do not manage to secure alternative employment when they lose their jobs because of the Government’s decision?
Alan Johnson
My hon. Friend might get an answer to that from the Home Secretary. Perhaps those staff should not have had the temerity to take those jobs, because they should have known that the Conservatives were going to win the next general election. This is the new, bizarre world in which we are living.
Abolishing the national identity register would save very little for three reasons: first, all the information held on our existing passport database will continue to be held; secondly, that information will need to be held securely, as it is now; and thirdly, we will still need to collect and securely hold the fingerprints of foreign nationals on a database.
The Government’s claim that scrapping ID cards will save £800 million in operating costs over the next 10 years is utter fantasy. We always proceeded on the basis of full cost recovery and made it perfectly clear that over 10 years, the operating costs of ID cards would be recovered through fees, so there would be no charge on general taxation over that period. However, if there are no ID cards, there is no charge for ID cards, and therefore no way of recovering the costs. By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream but leave the cancellation costs, which the taxpayer will be forced to pay, and let us not forget the continuing cost to the economy of fraud, abuse of the NHS, illegal immigration and unauthorised working. By cancelling the scheme, the Government will make not a saving, but a substantial loss.