Cut in overseas students will 'damage universities'

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The government's proposals to restrict overseas students will have a damaging impact on our universities, says Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

The UK has long welcomed overseas students to our shores. It has been a visible sign of the strength of our education system and a valuable addition to the resources of our universities. As the trade minister, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, said to the House of Lords on Wednesday 9 Feb:

"The role of British educational institutions as export earners in their own right and, importantly, as in some sense ambassadors for what Britain is around the world, cannot be prized highly enough. All indications are that those who come into contact with the British educational experience end up taking with them a warm experience of Britain for the rest of their working lives. They are all the more keen therefore to engage with us, whether as investors or as traders later in life. I think that this is extremely important."

Unfortunately, a different arm of government is doing its level best to undermine this. The UK Borders Agency, in a consultation on the student immigration system, is making radical proposals to cut the number of international students by introducing tougher criteria, limiting the entitlement of students to work and sponsor dependents, and raising the level of courses students can study.

I am asking my oral question in the Lords on the impact of the proposed immigration changes on universities, as I fear that the Home Office is going for the wrong target, at the wrong time, when we should be encouraging growth and the continued success of our universities in attracting talent from around the world.

Ministers have said that these changes are primarily to clamp down on abuse – which is fine. But if that is the case, why do so many of the proposals equally apply to well qualified students, wishing to go to universities, and why are so many, potentially, a major disincentive to all?

Raising minimum levels of English to B2 – equivalent to an A-level in a foreign language – will damage university pathway and foundation courses. Major providers indicate that up to 70 per cent of students currently on these programmes would not meet the B2 requirement, although 97 per cent successfully proceed to undergraduate programmes. Cutting these 'level 3' courses entirely or restricting them to 'highly trusted sponsors' – options in the consultation – would severely damage university recruitment, as over 40 per cent of non-EU students are recruited from these lower-level courses in the UK. Without them, university recruitment could be decimated.

Cutting rights to bring dependants for those who study for less than 12 months would mean no university postgraduate student doing a typical Masters course – which are just under 12 months – could be accompanied by wife or husband. Cutting rights of any dependant to work at all, even in a voluntary capacity, is likely to discourage all future married postgraduate students from coming to the UK – and especially the critically important two-out-of-five non EU students doing PhDs in the UK which often take three to four years. Finally, abolishing the post-study work route entirely and without any transitional protection for those currently here, who had been led to believe this would be open to them, may cause untold damage to both trust and reputation.

Universities UK has called the proposals 'damaging and dangerous'. The UK Council for International Student Affairs has called them 'potentially the most damaging for a decade if not a generation'. The Association of MBAs, writing in The House Magazine, is equally concerned about the impact on recruitment, business and growth.

I am looking for assurances that no measures will be introduced at this critical time which might have a negative impact on our universities or might stem the growth of well-qualified students to well-established institutions.

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