My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who participated in a very impressive debate. I thank in particular my three co-sponsors of this amendment, the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, who so eloquently set out the case which I tried to introduce. There were many other remarkable contributions to this debate, so I will not try to pick out any others.
In a previous debate on this subject—we are getting quite used to having debates on this particular subject—I likened the Minister to St Sebastian, filled with arrows but still smiling. The best pictures of St Sebastian always show him smiling despite the number of arrows that have gone through him. The Minister always handles this with great good temper. I was very pleased on this occasion that he had one supporter, as that removed the sense that we were indulging in an unfair debate.
I hope that we can stop having a war of statistics. The Minister came back again to the point about the UN figures. No one is contesting that the Government will continue to submit to the UN figures in the way that the UN has asked for—that is to say, all people who stay for a year or more. But there is not the slightest difficulty about disaggregating those figures and putting them together again before sending them into the UN. If the Government wanted to, they could leave students out of this Bill completely but, at the same time, continue to make the same returns. I hope that we do not have to come back to that. I think that the war on statistics has gone about as far as it can go. Frankly, citing several times the enormous enthusiasm for Indian students to come to this country sits a little oddly alongside a 49% drop in the past two years. If that is enthusiasm, I do not think we can afford many more victories like that.
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The one thing that I would like to pick out was the very perceptive statement from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, that if we really wanted to show that we want the brightest and best to come without any limit on numbers, we should pass this amendment, because that would send a message of complete clarity to all the people who may be hesitating and thinking that we are rather unwelcoming.
The Minister spoke about the Government’s overall aim to get net migration down to the tens of thousands—a policy that does not always seem to be shared by all
members of the Government, but I know that it is the Government’s policy. He quoted that and seemed not to understand the contradiction between saying that and saying that there was no limit on students coming here. Students are 60% of that net figure. How on earth are you going to get down from 230,000 or 240,000 to below 100,000 without cutting back on students? The answer is that you are not. You either believe in one part of the policy or you believe in the other, but if you believe in both you are going to do the splits.
Before we get to Report, I hope that the Government will take into consideration all the views that have been expressed around the House. There is an easier way out of this, which is in the national interest, and I just hope that the Government will take it. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.