here - United Kingdom Parliament

1727 Student Visas
6 JUNE 2013
Student Visas
1728
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 do in order to protect and growth
our own share. The most obvious competitive set are
the Anglophone countries, led by the United States, but
also including Canada and Australia. Increasingly, however,
non-English speaking countries are offering Englishspeaking
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.
Jackie Doyle-Price: My hon. Friend is absolutely
right to highlight the abuses under the old system, but
there are two sides to tackling the problem—tightening
up the rules for people coming in, and removing those
abusing the system—but the NAO concluded that not
enough was being done in the latter department. Does
he agree that the Government need to make that more
of a priority?
Damian Hinds: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.
It must indeed be a clear priority.
I welcome the action that the Government have taken.
I do not think that everyone would agree, but I welcome
the removal of the blanket two-year right to work for all
graduates, because it looked a bit too much like a bribe
to sweeten the degree. There is a role for it, however, in
certain circumstances and categories, such as in subjects
where there is a shortage—we talked about STEM
subjects earlier—and for MBA students, who, by definition,
will already have worked for several years and have
done their first degree and who are valuable and mobile
students.
I welcome the removal of the right to work for
private college students, the requirement to show real
academic progress and, of course, the closure of bogus
colleges. I also acknowledge that the Government have
put in place a sensible and proportionate regime for
student visitors. A lot of people have thrown statistics
around, but overall it appears that the falls in the
numbers have been concentrated primarily in those
sectors and parts of the market where abuse was most
prevalent. I also welcome the fact that there is no cap on
the numbers of people coming to university. It is right
that the Prime Minister goes out and gives that message,
as we saw him doing recently at the KPMG offices—I
think—in India, but it is a constant battle against
possible perceptions. For example, the message on
MBA student blogs in India is that Britain is not as
welcoming a place—or not welcoming at all—as it once
was.
Nicola Blackwood: Does my hon. Friend agree that
one reason for that ongoing perception might be the
efficiency, or lack thereof, of in-country UK Border
Agency officials? With the expansion of credibility
interviews, that will only increase. Some of the reports that
I have heard about the reasons for people being turned
down at interview—those where the decision was later
overturned at appeal—are concerning. Does he agree
that if we are to increase the caution with which we
agree to visa applications, we should also increase the
efficiency of UKBA in-country?
Damian Hinds: As always, my hon. Friend makes her
point clearly and well. I do not have enough knowledge
about the interview to comment, but overall, with or
without a cap, and whatever happened last year or this
year—we know that there is no cap, and we know that
the figures look broadly okay—it nevertheless remains
the case that, given the intense scrutiny to which immigration
numbers will rightly be subjected, how students are
treated in those statistics must inevitably affect the extent
to which we as a country seize this market opportunity
in the years ahead.
In one way it is blindingly obvious, but it is worth
saying that not every student adds to immigration. In
the steady state, so long as we are reasonably good at
counting people leaving as well as those coming—
Chris Bryant: That is a big “if”.
Damian Hinds: We took over from Labour.
So long as we are reasonably good at that, it is only
growth in the numbers that will add to immigration.
However, I would ask the Minister to look again and
consider counting people towards net immigration only
at the point at which they settle. The key counterargument—in
some ways it is quite strong—is that a
student is a human being like any other, and if there is a
net increase in their numbers, that is an increase in net
immigration, which will lead to the same strain on
housing, public services and so on as with any other
type of immigration. I would argue that that is not quite
true. I do not want to sound trivial about it, but one
could argue, with some sense, that students do not take
up quite as much residential living space as others and,
being younger on average, they are—[Interruption.] I
do not mean that students are smaller. I myself was
thinner as an undergraduate—that is history—but I
was thinking more about housing. As younger people,
typically, students are probably less likely than the
average person to make demands on the national health
service, places at primary schools and so on.
Chris Bryant: It is an absolute pre-condition of any
student visa that that person is unable to make any
claims on the taxpayer or, therefore, the NHS.
Damian Hinds: I am conscious of the time and I do
not want to get into a long debate about this, but any
person in this country will be consuming public services
to some extent—for example, roads—and is financed by
the rest of us. In any case, broadly speaking we are
making the same points.