Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

The noble Baroness would be right to worry, but, looking outside the system, the principal important change, as I see it, is in the role of the institution. The noble Baroness rightly raised a ludicrous example and a ridiculous decision regarding Northern Ireland. But if an institution is working with the student and says, ““This student should come to this institution because it seems to us that they have the qualifications to do so and we are keen to have them””, the person has that institution behind them and will play a much stronger role in determining whether the student will comes there—not the entry clearance officer. I said that the role of the officer is largely about asking whether the student has the sponsorship of that institution, whether they can demonstrate that they have the funds to come here and study in that institution, and so on. It is a different position which determines, after all, what the right relationship between the university and the student should be—which is what happens internally in the UK: you get an offer from a university and what is looked at is whether you can afford to be there and so on. That is the right relationship.