My Lords, from these Benches we strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, just said. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, reminded us of the heady days of coalition when I was his opposite number in this House. I remember the debates that went on between the Secretary of State for BIS and the Home Secretary on this topic: the noble Lord could never get any movement on seeing the illogicality.
What baffles many of us is that the Government reiterate that there is no cap on genuine international students, but then they say, “But we will count them as migrants and we are determined to reduce the number of migrants”. It is incomprehensible that the Government cannot see how very unwelcoming it is to put those things together in sequence. We find it completely baffling that we are not getting any movement on this. We recognise that this issue is probably outside the departmental brief of the Minister, but I echo what has been said already: we hope that very soon there will be movement on this. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, always speaks with great passion and eloquence on this topic, backed with evidence and facts.
This is probably the last time that I shall speak on the Bill, so I reiterate the very sincere thanks to the Minister, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, and Minister Jo Johnson, to the Bill team and to other colleagues who have been so helpful to us on what has turned out to be a very long and drawn-out discussion on the Bill. The amendments that have come through today have already improved it again. As I said before, it would obviously have been lovely if all our amendments had been accepted, but we recognise that we have actually done a very good job in making this Bill a whole lot better than it was before.
I echo the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who led a collaboration of the engaged on these issues, made up of Members from these Benches, his Benches,
the Cross Benches and occasionally some noble Lords on the Conservative Benches, to try to ensure that we could get the very best possible out of this Bill. I also thank my noble friend Lord Storey, who has been a tower of strength throughout. We have made this Bill much better than when it reached us and I am grateful to the Minister for helping that to happen.