here - United Kingdom Parliament

1725 Student Visas
6 JUNE 2013
Student Visas
1726
[Nicola Blackwood]
been about the frequent changes to student visas, which
are much more of a difficulty for both students and the
university. Perhaps he might like to comment on those
issues, as they are the main challenges that are actually
faced by the university’s students.
Mr Smith: I will take those comments as warm and
strong support for the points I have made about the
damage the changes to the visa regime have done.
The Government are denying independent colleges a
level playing field and disadvantaging them in a number
of respects. These include: the 2011 two-year cap on
international student numbers; all the uncertainties of
the twice-yearly Highly Trusted Sponsor renewal
application; the denial of part-time work for students
either in term time or holidays; student exclusion from
the new post-study work schemes for PhD and MBA
graduates; and the fact that unlike university students,
PhD students at independent colleges are not exempt
from Tier 4’s five-year time limit, so they cannot do a
first degree in the UK before their PhD.
It is little surprising that international student enrolments
on higher education courses at independent colleges fell
by over 70% between 2011 and 2012, with a fall of 46%
in college sector visas for the year ending March 2013.
This has destroyed tens—possibly hundreds—of college
businesses, cost thousands of jobs and resulted in a loss
of income to the families accommodating students and
to the local businesses and communities within which
they spend their money.
I strongly support the motion. I hope that the
Government will listen to the Select Committees that
have come to the same view and take international
students out of the migrations statistics used to steer
UK immigration policy. I hope that Ministers will remove
the unfair penalties imposed on independent colleges,
work in partnership with them to develop longer-term,
highly trusted accreditation and promote the contribution
these colleges make. I also urge them more generally to
think further and positively about how to encourage,
not discourage, overseas students at all levels who want
to come here, as those students invigorate universities
and other education institutions and generate lots of
overseas earnings, jobs and economic demand, which
people here desperately need. Doing so would rebuild
Britain’s reputation in the world as somewhere that
welcomes international students and researchers and
recognises their enormous potential contribution to our
culture and economy—which, let us remember, is to the
benefit of us all.
2.1 pm
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con): In the media,
international students at our universities are generally
seen though one of two lenses: the positive one is that
they are a cash-cow, premium product that historically
has cross-subsidised domestic students in our universities;
the negative one is that, because of this, they might end
up getting too many places at our universities, thus
keeping out some of our home-grown talent. Both are
completely the wrong way of thinking about international
students. This is a huge growth market in the world and
vital to our economic growth.
Education ought to be for us a focus sector, alongside
life sciences, advanced manufacturing, the digital and
creative industries, professional services and tourism. It
is also a market in which, thankfully, we have strong
competitive advantages. We have some of the best brand
names in the business: Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh,
St Andrews, Birmingham, Manchester, Queen’s Belfast,
the London School of Economics—[HON. MEMBERS:
“Hear, hear!”] I can name check others, if anyone wants
me to.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): Leeds.
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,