My Lords, I shall briefly add my support to both Amendment 26 and my noble friend’s Amendment 80. The fact is that overseas students are temporary migrants. They should be both treated and reported differently. These two amendments reflect that approach.
This debate is very timely. Last week, the net migration figures were published and none of the media coverage disaggregated the figures. I do not know what the Government’s original press release stated, but it seems that by publishing in that form they are simply creating a rod for their own back. Amendment 80 at least is an attempt to make sure that for some purposes, the student visa figures are clearly and publicly disaggregated.
The obsession with the original pledge to reduce net migration to tens of thousands seems to me and to many others in the university sector to be totally counterproductive in terms of its impact on our ability to attract foreign students. I and many others made clear on Second Reading that we are in danger of an adverse impact both in economic terms and in terms of the soft power to which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lord Maclennan referred. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, the total number of international students coming to the UK fell for the first time last year.
The number of voices that we have heard over the past two years, not just in this House, has been legion in that respect. In 2012, 68 representatives of universities wrote to the Government urging that these figures should be disaggregated for public policy purposes.
The Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee did likewise. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to the five chairmen of Select Committees. All the aforementioned are powerful voices recommending that for domestic policy purposes, overseas students should not be counted against the overall limit on net migration.
Contrary to that, the Government’s response to the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee’s report stated that they were following the same practice as the US, Canada and Australia, our main higher education competitors. That is simply not the case. Those countries do exclude students, treating them as temporary migrants for domestic policy development. It is high time that we did likewise—failing which we are going to find that we are in grave difficulties over our ability to attract these students in future.
8.45 pm