here - United Kingdom Parliament

1729 Student Visas
6 JUNE 2013
Student Visas
1730
[Damian Hinds]
We could also mitigate those effects. Given that housing
is particular issue, we could do that by requiring universities
that want to expand to provide additional accommodation.
Local areas that want to benefit from such economic
growth should also have to be willing to accept the
provision of extra accommodation, over and above
residential housing.
The truth is that there are downsides—additional
strains and calls on public resources and residential
accommodation—to having more people in the country.
It is not without cost; it is a choice to be made. We have
to weigh up the costs and downsides against the benefits
that so many people have talked about—the revenues,
the export earnings, the jobs that are created, the talent
we can bring to this country and the strengthening of
our links around the world. If, having made that calculation,
we decide that this should be a focus area in contributing
to our economic growth—I think the case is very strong
—we must be bold in seizing that opportunity.
2.14 pm
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