Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I have been trying to outline exactly that Catch-22 situation, which is something that the Government need to take seriously, as Opposition Members have done. Universities UK and the other organisations in the education and immigration sectors firmly oppose the scheme that the Government propose in the Bill. I was disappointed that the Minister was not willing to accept the amendments that I moved in Committee. Unfortunately, these amendments are more narrowly focused on preserving appeals only for international students. Since the Minister repeatedly emphasised in Committee that he understood the education sector’s concerns, we hope that he will now reconsider at least some of these proposals. I should like him to tell us whether he has had any representation from the Department for Education and Skills about how it feels about the provisions that he is proposing from the Home Office. Again, we must put the proposals clearly into context. There are 210,510 international students in higher education in the UK today. International fee income accounts for 8 per cent. of the total income to the higher education sector. That is about £1.5 billion a year. A further 75,000 international students are studying in further education colleges, and they bring £58 million in tuition fees alone into the FE sector. It is estimated that, in the round, international students contribute about £5 billion to the UK economy through their spending on goods, services, accommodation and so on.