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1737 Student Visas<br />
6 JUNE 2013<br />
Student Visas<br />
1738<br />
[Chris Bryant]<br />
come with completely different experiences from elsew<strong>here</strong><br />
in the world, that enlivens, informs and improves the<br />
quality of the education of British students in universities<br />
and colleges. Also, this is about ensuring that we provide<br />
the strongest possible opportunity for overseas students<br />
to develop their understanding of what it is like to be in<br />
Britain and to do business in Britain. We hope that they<br />
will then do greater business with us further in the future.<br />
I would also point out that, as many hon. Members<br />
have said, this is an area of migration—if we want to<br />
term it as such—that is warmly welcomed and accepted<br />
by the British public. Leaving aside the matter of bogus<br />
colleges, w<strong>here</strong> foreigners were exploited and not given<br />
a proper education, and British taxpayers were exploited<br />
because proper controls were not in place, it is warmly<br />
accepted in this country that international students are<br />
important for our economy. If we are to prosper in the<br />
future as a country that is in “a global race”, to use<br />
the Prime Minister’s term, we have to be able to compete<br />
for international students—for that market around the<br />
world.<br />
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con): Does<br />
the hon. Gentleman accept that not only have we had<br />
bogus colleges, but quite a lot of colleges have provided<br />
relatively low-value courses, be they in business, accounting<br />
or IT, w<strong>here</strong> the incentive of being able to work part-time,<br />
stay on to work afterwards, bring dependants and<br />
potentially stay on has been much of the reason why<br />
international students have stayed, and that the Government<br />
have been right to crack down on that?<br />
Chris Bryant: I want to see more evidence of precisely<br />
what the hon. Gentleman mentions. I believe he has<br />
been in his Committee all afternoon, so I understand<br />
why he has not been able to take part in the whole of<br />
this debate, which is a shame. I merely wish to cite the<br />
Government’s own Home Office paper from this year,<br />
“The Migrant Journey”, which showed that just 1% of<br />
students who came <strong>here</strong> in 2006 were permanently<br />
residing <strong>here</strong> five years later. So those myths that have<br />
sometimes grown up of—[Interruption.] T<strong>here</strong> are others<br />
who are still studying and who have gone on to study<br />
other courses, but according to the Home Office’s own<br />
report only 1% are permanently residing. Some of the<br />
myths that have been mentioned in previous debates<br />
about 20% or 30% of students staying on afterwards are<br />
misguided.<br />
I wish briefly to discuss the Government’s record.<br />
The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon<br />
(Nicola Blackwood) referred to the Higher Education<br />
Statistics Agency. Its figures showed, contrary to the<br />
figures often provided by the Government, that the<br />
number of first-year, non-EU, new-entrant students at<br />
universities was down by 0.4% in 2011-12. In particular,<br />
the number of postgraduate new entrants has gone<br />
down from 105,195 to 103,150, which is potentially a<br />
worrying trend that we need to examine for the future<br />
because it is the first time t<strong>here</strong> has been a fall in those<br />
figures for a decade—in effect, for all the time that<br />
similar statistics have been available.<br />
As several hon. Members said, the number of students<br />
coming from India has fallen by some 8,000. That<br />
number may have been made up for by the number<br />
coming from China, but, as my right hon. Friend the<br />
Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) said, it was a sign<br />
of the Government’s “forked-tonguedness”or two-facedness<br />
that the Prime Minister actually had to go to India to<br />
say that t<strong>here</strong> is no cap on international students coming<br />
to the <strong>United</strong> <strong>Kingdom</strong>. T<strong>here</strong> may not be a legal cap,<br />
but it certainly feels as if t<strong>here</strong> is a cap, and the Government<br />
have to address that. As the hon. Member for Stratfordon-Avon<br />
said, if this is a growing market, we need to be<br />
holding our market share, and that means advancing<br />
and not stepping backwards. I would like us to increase<br />
our market share, because we have a unique and very<br />
valuable offer, and this would be good for the British<br />
economy. I worry that the way the Government’s<br />
immigration target is crafted has made that more difficult<br />
for us to achieve.<br />
All the estimates show a significant fall in Britain’s<br />
attractiveness as a place for study, while Australia and<br />
Canada have seen dramatic improvements in their<br />
attractiveness. One Australian who works in this business<br />
told me recently, “I am delighted at what your Government<br />
are doing, because you are giving us lots of business.”<br />
That should really worry the Government.<br />
I wish to raise one other minor point, which a number<br />
of hon. Members have mentioned and which relates to<br />
the number of overseas students who come to study<br />
degrees in science, technology, engineering and maths.<br />
That is the area in which we saw the most significant<br />
drop—8%—in 2011-12 in the number of non-EU newentrant<br />
students coming to the UK. That must worry<br />
us, because it will affect our future competitiveness and<br />
productivity.<br />
I now want to ask the Minister about London<br />
Metropolitan university. On 3 September 2012, while<br />
responding to an urgent question from my hon. Friend<br />
the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the<br />
right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green)— the<br />
Minister’s predecessor—said that more than 60% of<br />
students at London Met were involved in the “problems”<br />
of dubious education and were not proper students. He<br />
added:<br />
“It was not a small, isolated number of students; the sampling<br />
showed significant systemic problems throughout.”—[Official Report,<br />
3 September 2012; Vol. 549, c. 26.]<br />
I should have thought that if that had been the case, a<br />
significant number of people would have been removed<br />
from the country.<br />
That one bovver-booted intervention, made at a time<br />
of the year—the autumn—when many people were<br />
coming to study in the <strong>United</strong> <strong>Kingdom</strong>, sent a message<br />
around the world that Britain was not open for business.<br />
I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us precisely<br />
how many students from London Metropolitan university<br />
were deemed to be “not proper students” and have been<br />
removed from the country. If he cannot do so now,<br />
perhaps he will write to me.<br />
In his report on tier 4 visas, John Vine said:<br />
“We found a potential risk of non-genuine students opting to<br />
apply for Student (Visitor) visas”,<br />
which, he said,<br />
“are not subject to the same stringent rules that are applied to<br />
Tier 4… The Agency needs to be alert to this to ensure that this<br />
route is not exploited in the future.”<br />
The dramatic increase in the number of people applying<br />
to study shorter courses is almost in direct proportion<br />
to the fall in the number applying for tier 4 visas. I fear