My Lords, as one of the co-sponsors of this amendment, I will add a few further thoughts to the ones so ably mentioned by my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I completely bear him out that the history of higher education in this country for overseas students is one of the most remarkable success stories of any country in the world. For the past 20 or 30 years, we have maintained an astonishing magnetic appeal to young
men and women coming from other countries, both within the European Union and far beyond it, to a greater extent than any other country in the world—although recently the United States has moved into first place in the league table of such countries.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out that, sadly, the United Kingdom has lost some momentum in attracting overseas students, and I will say a few words about that in a moment. First, I thank the Minister for the immense amount of work that he has done, his willingness to have meetings day after day and the huge amount of effort that he has put into them. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that nothing would give us greater pleasure than to receive a response that would enable us not to proceed further with this amendment. However, there are still substantial questions out there to be answered.
I will therefore begin by saying that one of the troubling aspects of this situation, which is a relatively new one, is that in the past couple of years the standing of the United Kingdom as regards its acceptability to overseas students has been quite substantially damaged. As an example I will give the House the benefit of what the National Union of Students said about the extent to which overseas students see us as a welcome and welcoming country. It conducted a substantial survey of some 18,000 people in early January of this year and found that 51% of undergraduates from overseas—just over half—said that they had not found the United Kingdom a welcoming place in which to study. In some ways even more troubling is that, among postgraduates who have a degree and are now staying in the country particularly with a view to working to fund the completion of their qualifications, the number was as high as 66%. Two-thirds of postgraduates who responded to the survey said that they had not found Britain a welcoming country in which to study. That is substantially different from figures in earlier surveys, which showed that the United Kingdom was rated very highly as regards the welcome it extended to overseas students.
I will add two other rather hard things. First, many billions of pounds—the estimate is about £3.5 billion—have come into this country as the result of payments made by students to universities for the studies that they have made. Perhaps at least as significant in that context is that the attitude of postgraduates to work-study arrangements that are made is increasingly negative. Our work-study arrangements are now less generous than those of other countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States. I will give a figure for that shortly, but before I do so I will add one crucial fact.
I was for three years of my life the Minister for Education and Science. One thing that is not sufficiently recognised in this country is the extraordinary contribution made by postgraduates and post-doctoral overseas students to the remarkable scientific achievements of this country. In many cases scientific teams are heavily dependent on attracting outstanding young men and women from abroad to take part in our research teams, primarily directed at science and medicine. I could give many examples, but I will give just a couple. The remarkable achievements in connection with graphene in the past couple of years, which led to no less than a
Nobel Prize, were the outcome of the work of mixed teams of our own people and people from overseas, and that was a very remarkable achievement.
I can give another remarkable achievement, in this case from the University of East Anglia, where a former student who became a postgraduate and continued to work in the field of medicine established that at least one of the regularly prescribed pharmaceutical products designed to deal with diabetes was in fact the source of more frequent heart attacks among diabetes patients than among people of the same age group. That gentleman made a huge contribution by revealing this in detailed scientific papers, as a result of which that particular pharmaceutical product has now been withdrawn and the effect it had on heart attacks among diabetic patients has ceased.
A third example is the remarkable building up of a huge history of China by a mixed team of people, in this case in the humanities, which shows in detail the way in which China has developed, the sources of its growth and the sources of its political difficulties right up to the present time. I will not go on, but any Member of this House who wants more detailed information will find an extensive list of the achievements by postgraduates from overseas, together with British graduates and post-doctoral students, which shows how important that group is.
I will say right away, therefore, along with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that we are very pleased that the Minister has addressed the very difficult question of landlords and tenancies and the question of accommodation. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, gratitude for the steps that the Minister has taken, which have been achieved with a great deal of hard work, innovation and determination to get an answer. We are truly grateful for that and, like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I hope that he will be able to confirm this morning that there has been an adequate extension of the plan for undergraduates to postgraduate and post-doctoral students.
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However, there are two real problems that must be mentioned. The first is the quite dramatic decline in the number of postgraduates who have managed to get the so-called extension for postgraduate work. This, incidentally, is the source of much of the research I have referred to. You need to go beyond your postgraduate degree—to work in the field—to realise some of its potential. The gap has been quite troubling. In 2011, 46,875 postgraduates managed to get agreement to an extension of a work visa to enable them to put into practice what they had learned theoretically. In 2012, the figure was 36,505: a drop of more than one-fifth in one year. Will the Minister say something about the effects of the rather more relaxed attitude this year and last towards work-study visas, compared to 2012? The work extension principle is crucial across the piece, not just in science and medicine, for some of the most outstanding young men and women postgraduates in the world.
Secondly, I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about the health position. We accept that the £150 which has to be paid on the visa for
health coverage in the United Kingdom is not unreasonable, and this view is probably shared across your Lordships’ House. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, it becomes unreasonable for a postgraduate who may be studying for four or five years and, perhaps, doing work study for another two or three, who may bring a spouse and a number of children. That makes the health surcharge terribly hard to manage and pay for. It would be unreasonable to suggest it should be withdrawn, but we ask the Minister to look at two possible ways to deal with the issue. One would be to exclude children under 16, who are normally excluded from paying NHS charges for medical attention. The second, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, would be a cap on the amount that a young person working in research and academic teaching would be expected to pay year after year until such time as he was accepted as resident in this country.
I turn to two other issues. First, there is real difficulty with our visa system. I recognise that the Home Office is making an effort to improve the efficiency of visa handling and processing. However, as most people will recognise, there is much evidence from universities of sudden decisions taken to remove, refuse or delay a visa. That has seriously affected our ability to attract overseas students. In one year, Australia changed the whole of its processing of visas to make them much more rapid and efficient. As a result, it leapt up the table of preferred destinations from fairly low down to near the top. Canada had the same experience and is now the second most favoured destination after the United States.
I conclude with a point that I know the Minister is sympathetic to, as he has expressed this to us. In order to recognise that we have a change in attitude to bring about on the part of overseas students, we have to be perceived differently. It may be fair or unfair, but I have read the figures which show we are not perceived as a particularly welcoming country. The Government and the universities need to work closely together to convey a message that overseas students who are legal, good citizens and who contribute to universities are very welcome to enter the country. They need to make it clear to these students that, as long as they have the right attitude to their studies, work and their fellow citizens, they are extremely welcome because this is one of our greatest contributions to the world.