The hon. Gentleman is both right and wrong. It is a bit of a stretch to say that the student numbers distort the overall immigration numbers, because the net implication of student migration is quite small, but his comment about the signal that this sends takes us to the point. As I said in an intervention on the Minister, there is a conundrum—an illogical position—when we include within a number that we wish to control a number that we do not wish to control. That epitomises the tension that exists as we wrestle with the way in which we communicate our message about immigration. What the British public want, of course, is a Government who are prepared and able to control migration in total, as this Government are, but I would hope that the Government also want to send a signal to the rest of the world that we are open for people to come here and study hard at our universities. While student numbers are included in the immigration statistics, the problem for our institutions of higher learning is that instead of having a green light, they have, at best, an amber light. They are always going to be looking over their shoulder and trying to work out if they are pushing things too far or have really kept themselves within the goal of the Government. At some point—practically speaking in the next Parliament, when the institution frameworks that the Government are putting in place have had time to bed in—we should look again at taking out the student numbers, because ultimately they should not be in the immigration figures. However, this proposal is a good way of getting precision for now.
The second reason why this compromise is important is perhaps more of a point of philosophy about the Conservative party. The party is at its best when it looks towards the light. In politics there are things that inspire us and move us forward, and there are things that make us fearful and cautious. That light can be on issues of trade and enterprise, of acceptance of culture and diversity, or of research and learning.
The Conservative party must ensure that it will be pointing towards the light in the next few years. By the very nature of the name of our party—Conservative—we do not always get there first, but it is surely to the benefit of our country as a whole that we always have a positive view about what our country represents. We are a beacon for many around the world who are finding that their freedoms—perhaps their social freedoms or their freedom of expression—are restricted, so there is a responsibility on our party to look at the issue, particularly in relation to our world-class universities, and to say that the next Conservative Administration will be looking towards the light and making ourselves an open and international country, because that is where the best interests of our country lie.