Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-26
Topic: Education
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She pre-empts me perfectly, because that was the point I was coming to. We are talking not simply about an extraordinary opportunity in an ever-smaller world for UK students to learn and study alongside those from many other countries, but about the contribution to research. I see that not only from our universities, but from my local businesses that benefit in Sheffield, and it is of huge importance To that list we should add the enormous benefits of the lasting relationships we build with those who study in this country. Last year I was talking to the high commissioner of a country that is one of our major trading partners and an important ally. He said to me, "Do you realise that more than half our Cabinet were educated at UK universities?" According to the Higher Education Policy Institute, 55 world leaders from 51 countries studied here. That is the sort of soft power that other countries would die for—political influence and commercial contracts based on the affection that people feel around the world because of their experience of studying in the UK All those things are in addition to economic benefits—almost £11 billion of export earnings. One would imagine that the Government would be celebrating that great British success and trying to make it stronger, but that is not the case. Throughout the last Parliament, to growing concern, the Government undermined our ability to keep up on international student recruitment. The Minister contests that claim and says that the numbers have stayed broadly level. I agree that largely they did—they dip off, and I will return to that point—but staying level in a growing market represents a failure. Holding level is not good enough when it means that we are reducing our market share, to the benefit of our competitors. As I said earlier, in 2014-15, the latest year for which numbers are available, new international student enrolments fell by 3%. He says that these things go up and down, but we can contrast that figure with the position in the United States, which has the biggest share of international students and where enrolments increased by 7%. The situation also contrasts with what is happening in Australia, where enrolments increased by 35%. Seeing our weakness, it put in place a strategy that was deliberately designed to take students from the UK. Canada is also planning to double its numbers, all at our expense Throughout the last Parliament, new measures introduced by the Government made the UK a less attractive destination. Those measures were put in place to help the Government to hit their net migration targets, and this is why the point made by the hon. Member for Bedford is so relevant. The problem is that the Government view international students as part of the migration debate, but that is not how the public see them. As he said, polls show that 75% of the public want international student numbers to stay the same or go up. It is also not the way this place sees them, because in the last Parliament an unprecedented five Select Committees of the House of Commons and the House of Lords called for change and for taking international students out of the net migration targets. These are challenging times for our country as we chart our course in the post-Brexit world. We need to win friends, not alienate them. As the Prime Minister’s trade mission to India last year demonstrated, many of those friends will put access to our universities at the heart of their discussion about our future trading relationships. We need to build on our successful sectors In terms of export earnings, universities are a huge success, but that is put at risk by Brexit. This is about not just the 125,000 EU students who are here, but the 30% of non-EU students who said that the UK would be a less attractive destination if we left the EU. We face losing up to half our international students if we do not get this right, and that will have an impact on the economy of every town and city across the country that has a university. As the Minister knows, it puts at risk critical courses, particularly in STEM subjects at a postgraduate taught level, which depend on numbers of international students A sensible Government and Prime Minister would look at those facts and say, "How can we strengthen our appeal to international students?" While our competitors are doing just that by developing recruitment strategies to win more students, the Prime Minister is saying no. There is no other sector in our economy that the Government would treat this way. The die is cast for this Bill but, as the hon. Member for Bath said, Members on both sides of the House will ensure that this issue will return in the next Parliament. Ultimately, common sense will prevail.