My Lords, my name is attached, along with others, to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I will speak briefly to make one or two points that perhaps are not so widely part of this debate, because, as I have rung up acquaintances of mine in universities—I know quite a few, having been an Education Minister—I have become more aware of the depth of the challenge to our university and higher education system and, at one remove, of the depth of the challenge to the front wave of our economy in terms of its dependence on innovation and invention. I will not detain the Committee for long, but I believe that what I am saying, although supplementary to what has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, deserves a great deal of thought.
Let me begin by saying that what has attracted students from overseas to this country has been not only the English language and the excellence of our universities, but also a deep sense of our being an old and stable democracy. People have a sense of freedom of expression in this country, along with freedom of intellectual discussion and debate. There is no doubt
that, rather surprisingly, in the fields of science and technological research, this country has continued to be a magnet for students from all over the world in a way that one would not really expect for a country of our size and one that is not in the very first rank of economies, like the United States at the present time. It is very important that the context of what attracts overseas students to this country is something that we maintain. In particular it means our marked ability to tolerate different points of view, and to tolerate people of different races, nationalities and languages. That has been a hallmark of studying in this country.
Anyone who reads the history of the United Kingdom will be more than aware that on three occasions we have benefited vastly from immigration. The first occasion was the immigration of German Jews in the 1930s, who brought with them an extraordinary level of understanding and knowledge of medicine and science, including a number of very distinguished Nobel laureates. The second great wave was immigration from the Caribbean in the 1960s without which, quite frankly, we would not have a working National Health Service today because of the huge contribution they have made to staffing that public service. The third wave, more recently, was of immigrants from Asia and east African refugees who came here in the 1970s and gave a tremendous boost to our commerce, business and research.
However, it is not the case that the concerns being expressed here are those only of overseas students, although I echo completely what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about the very disturbing information from the National Union of Students. He mentioned the fact that more than 50% of undergraduate students said that they would think hard before coming to us again. Perhaps even more significant and important is that no fewer than 66% of postgraduate students—half of our overseas students are postgraduates—said exactly the same thing. In light of the changes being made—the increase in visa fees, the health surcharge and all the rest of it, these students would think hard before coming here again. Let me say in passing that we do not seem to recognise our extraordinary dependence on these postgraduate students. I can give an example. Time after time we have recruited doctors from the Indian subcontinent to sustain our health service. A great bulk of them have been postgraduate students who came from India to study in the United Kingdom and then went on to work as postgraduates, and in some cases decided to become citizens of this country and continue to sustain the NHS.
I would add to that that there are people of great significance and wisdom who would associate themselves powerfully with the view that the discouragement of overseas students has a devastating effect on our economy, in particular the science and engineering sectors. I shall quote two of them. The first example is a quotation from the CBI which has said in a public statement:
“Despite the government’s assurances to the contrary, many businesses fear that complex recent work permit and visa reforms have created a perception that Britain isn’t open for business”.
That is often treated as something that is said by those who come from outside this country, but no, it is something that has been said officially by the CBI, the leading organisation representing industry in the UK.
The second example comes from the president of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, who is a very great scientist indeed. Time and again he has pleaded with Governments to give a more generous reception to overseas students. I shall quote his words:
“The rhetoric from the Home Office, combined with the complexity involved with immigration rules and visas, has led to a perception internationally that the UK is not particularly welcoming”.
I have given these examples because no one can pretend that these are partisan statements made for political ends. They are statements by distinguished people who believe that what they are saying should be a warning for the rest of us.
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I will give another example. Something comes out every year called the Agent Barometer, which is published by a body called ICEF, together with the Enterprise Institute. This year, it said in its report on 2013 that there is now a steady decline in Britain’s attractiveness. In particular, it pointed out that in one year Canada has leapt to become the second most attractive destination for overseas students, the position that we held for a very long time, with only the United States higher. That is because Canada has changed its visa regulations and has decided on a campaign to welcome overseas students. It has certainly not added a series of obstacles to their coming to the country. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made the crucially important point about what we might call the localism element when it comes to overseas students and the universities that serve them. Anyone who knows the many cities where new universities have been born in the past generation will know how, in almost every case, the new university brings with it a degree of demand, excitement and stimulation which the old city simply did not have without it. That has been a huge contribution, against the great pull of London, to making this country intellectually and industrially lively and innovative well outside the London bubble.
There is another thing which is of great importance. The attempt that the Government made to try to meet some of the problems and objections about our becoming less attractive to overseas students—in particular the so-called exceptional talent scheme, introduced only two years ago, which allowed 700 visas to be taken up by the most brilliant scientists who could be attracted to this country and another 300 by the most brilliant artists—has failed dismally. So far only 80 of those 1,000 visas have been taken up because people who are inclined to accept them discover the obstacles on the way, including the cost of a whole range of things that they did not perhaps take into account in the first case.
There is another subtle and in some ways even more disturbing factor, which hardly anybody notices, although it was just touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. As a former Education Secretary, it is something that certainly burns with me. I was very shaken to hear one of the most senior people out of the many that I spoke to over the weekend from the university sector—I will not name him but he is certainly in one of the very top positions in the university world—tell me that his university is considering dropping the so-called STEM courses. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He said that without overseas students
coming in substantial numbers, the university was unable to finance these courses. He said, rather sadly, that there would not be sufficient British recruits to make up the difference; the university would simply have to drop the courses because it could not afford to sustain them in the situation where they were largely not taken up.
We are slipping in terms of engineering and science, as many noble Lords will know. The number of our own young people who opt for engineering and science courses is steadily declining, and the examination results in engineering and science are not very impressive. We are largely sustained in these fields, which are crucial to revive British manufacturing and to sustain British science, by overseas students, most of them postgraduates, who join our teams and work on cancer research, pharmacology and cybernetics—the whole range of what one might call the first new wave of scientific and engineering areas. We are no longer giving them the encouragement that would bring them to our country. That is really serious. How else do we imagine we will sustain an economy in the coming years if we cannot maintain the quality and brilliance of our research?
Another very great man who I will not name, also a leading researcher, said to me that time and again he finds that his teams need people with some innovatory experience from another country, but increasingly they cannot come, do not want to come or, because most of them are at an age when they have wives and children, cannot afford to come. The surcharge is deceptively low, and if you have a wife and two children it becomes really quite substantial.
I plead with the House to take this very seriously. I think we are in the process of killing the golden goose, which is a very foolish thing to do. We are, essentially, becoming more inward-looking. I am not blaming just my own Government, of whom I am a supporter; the practice of British Governments for many years now has increasingly failed to recognise the need to welcome people from overseas, help them and make them feel at home.
I conclude by saying that I am not a bit surprised that the United States takes first place. Having been a professor at Harvard for 10 years, I know the immense lengths that Harvard goes to to attract, hold, sustain and make happy people from all over the world. I sometimes think that it is like a huge vacuum cleaner simply sucking up talent. I do not believe that is the best thing that can happen to the world. However, I recognise that if we do not leave the doors open in our own old but brilliant country—which really does mean substantial changes to the legislation in front of us—we will have only ourselves to thank as we start slipping our way through the 21st century.