My Lords, Amendment 150 is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall of Blaisdon and Lady Garden of Frognal, and of the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, whose absence from the Chamber today, due to a health problem, both he and I deeply regret. When we debated these issues relating to overseas students, academic staff and global research co-operation in Committee, there were four amendments in my name. It has now been possible to telescope them into one, Amendment 150, which we are discussing now.
In summary, the amendment, first, places a duty on the Secretary of State to encourage overseas students to come here for their higher education. Secondly, it urges UKRI, the new organisation co-ordinating research, to encourage and facilitate the maximum international research co-operation, in particular with EU projects and programmes, which may be less easy to do after Brexit than it has been as a full member—which we still are. Thirdly, it seeks to put an end to the policy of
treating students for public policy purposes as long-term economic migrants. This subject has been debated many times in the House without anyone, except the lonely person on the ministerial Bench, expressing a contrary view. Fourthly, it seeks to ensure that no further restrictive immigration rules, beyond those that currently exist, are placed on undergraduate and postgraduate students with the offer of a place to study here, or on academic staff with an offer of employment. I underline the word “offer” because it is not intended that they should have free movement rights to come here and look for these things; they would need to have the offer.
5.15 pm
I shall try to answer two questions that seem pretty salient. First, does it matter, and, secondly, why should we be worried if we do not do anything about it? On the first question, I argue that it certainly does matter. In 2014-15 overseas students made up 19% of all students. The study just done by Oxford Economics on behalf of Universities UK has demonstrated that overseas students bring £25.8 billion of income and economic activity to this country, which provides for or helps to support roughly 206,000 jobs. Among postgraduates the figures are much higher: 25% of all postgraduates are from overseas. In some cases, such as business studies, they make up 55%; for maths the figure is 45%, and for computer science it is 42%. The figures for academic staff are also are very high: 28% overall, and 31% in the STEM subjects. These figures show how essential overseas students and academic staff are to the Government’s own industrial strategy, which will rely hugely on these students and this input.
The second question is: should we be worried if we do nothing? Frankly, we should be. The global market is growing rapidly, and all the available forecasts state that it will certainly do so for the next decade or so, and perhaps longer. The UK is second only to the US as a provider of higher education to overseas students, which is a tremendous achievement and a massive national asset, both economically and in terms of soft power. However, the figures also show a serious loss of market share to our main competitors—the US, Canada and Australia, to mention the three most important, none of which treats students as economic migrants for public policy purposes. That is the nub of the matter.
The 2015 figures tell the story: for the USA the numbers are up 10%; for Canada, up 10%; for Australia, up 9%; and for the UK, up by less than 1%. By far the most startling numbers are those for Indian students coming to the UK, which since 2010 are down 53%. India is surely a country we all believe and hope we will have a much closer relationship with when we negotiate trade relations following Brexit. We are becoming heavily overdependent on one source of overseas students: China, which now provides four times as many overseas students as any other foreign country. I would have thought this was a source of some vulnerability in an uncertain future.
The case for the shift in policy set out in the amendment is pretty unanswerable. To their credit, the Government have dealt with probably the biggest problem in this area—that caused by dodgy language schools—and I hope they will agree the amendment. I beg to move.