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The Student Immigration System in Scotland

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The Student Immigration System in Scotland House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee The Student Immigration System in Scotland Fifth Report of Session 2010–12 Volume I Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Additional written evidence is contained in Volume II, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/scottaff Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 19 July 2011 HC 912-I Published on 26 July 2011 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £14.50 The Scottish Affairs Committee The Scottish Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Scotland Office (including (i) relations with the Scottish Parliament and (ii) administration and expenditure of the offices of the Advocate General for Scotland (but excluding individual cases and advice given within government by the Advocate General)). Current membership Mr Ian Davidson MP (Labour/Co-op, Glasgow South West) (Chair) Fiona Bruce MP (Conservative, Congleton) Mike Freer MP (Conservative, Finchley and Golders Green) Cathy Jamieson MP (Labour/Co-op, Kilmarnock and Loudoun) Jim McGovern MP (Labour, Dundee West) David Mowat MP (Conservative, Warrington South) Fiona O’Donnell MP (Labour, East Lothian) Simon Reevell MP (Conservative, Dewsbury) Mr Alan Reid MP (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute) Lindsay Roy MP (Labour, Glenrothes) Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP (Scottish National Party, Banff and Buchan) The following members were also members of the committee during the Parliament: Mark Menzies MP (Conservative, Fylde) Julian Smith MP (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon) Powers The committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No. 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/scotaffcom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Dr Rebecca Davies (Clerk), Duma Langton (Inquiry Manager), James Bowman (Senior Committee Assistant), Gabrielle Henderson (Committee Assistant), Karen Watling (Committee Assistant) and Ravi Abhayaratne (Committee Support Assistant) Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Scottish Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6123; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. The Student Immigration System in Scotland 1 Contents Report Page 1 Student immigration 3 Background 3 The Government’s proposals 4 2 Student immigration in Scotland 5 International students in Scotland 5 Impact of the proposals upon Scotland 6 Highly Trusted Sponsor 6 Four year degrees 7 Population and skill needs 8 Post-Study Work 10 Switching from Tier 4 to Tier 2 11 £20,000 11 Bogus colleges 12 Reputational damage in a global market 13 3 Conclusion 16 Conclusions and recommendations 18 Annex 1: Five tier points-based immigration 21 Annex 2: Immigration data from competitor countries 22 Formal Minutes 23 Witnesses 24 List of printed written evidence 24 List of additional written evidence 24 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 26 The Student Immigration System in Scotland 3 1 Student immigration Background 1. Since March 2009, there have been five routes, described as ‘Tiers’, for non EU immigration into the UK. Students from outside the EU, who wish to study in the UK, have to apply for a visa through Tier 4.1 (See Annex 1 for more information on the points based immigration system.) Students and their dependants now represent the largest proportion of non-EU net migration to the UK, and in 2009 accounted for approximately 139,000 out of the total net migration figure of 184,000, which is 76% of total net migration.2 The Government has said that it wished to reduce net migration to “the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands”.3 The Government has introduced a cap on the number of non-EU economic migrants able to enter the UK for work, and announced that further measures would be introduced in order to reduce the number of migrants entering the UK as students.4 Definition of an immigrant 2. It is arguable that the easiest way to remove this considerable proportion from the immigration statistics would be to not consider students as migrants; particularly as they are the least likely to wish to stay permanently and least likely to bring dependents.5 The Minister for Immigration, Damian Green MP, noted that the UK use an internationally agreed UN definition of immigrant—someone who stays for 12 months or more6—and as such could not change it: [...] the idea that any Government could say "We've solved the serious problem of immigration simply by redefining what immigrants are" would have no credibility. It would clearly be an absurd thing to do. We have to keep using the internationally agreed figures that are always used.7 3. We have some sympathy with the view that students should be considered temporary visitors rather than migrants as their visa is time limited and there is an expectation that they will return to their home country. The Government should distinguish between those students who are here on a temporary basis and those who seek and secure permanent settlement, and publish both datasets.8 1 See www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/ for more information on the system for immigration to the UK. We use the phrase international students to describe those from outside the EU. 2 HC Deb 8 February 2011, col 278. 3 For example, David Cameron immigration speech, 14 April 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13083781 4 HM Government, The Coalition: our programme for government, Ch.17 Immigration, page 21 5 Home Office, The Migrant Journey, September 2010 6 Home Office and UKBA, The Student Immigration System, A Consultation, December 2010, para 2.7 7 HC Deb 8 February 2011, Col 278 8 See also Home Affairs Committee, Seventh Report of Session 2010-11, Student Visas, 17 March 2011 4 The Student Immigration System in Scotland The Government’s proposals 4. In December 2010 the Home Office published a consultation paper on student immigration, which had two stated aims: first, to introduce measures to reduce abuse of the immigration system, and secondly, to significantly reduce the number of international students, and thus the number of migrants, coming to the UK. At the same time, the Home Secretary said: “we do not want genuine, high quality students to be deterred by visa procedures”.9 The consultation included proposals to: • raise the level of courses that students can study; • introduce tougher entry criteria for students; • ensure students return overseas after their course; • limit entitlement for students to work and sponsor dependents; • ease the procedure for checking low risk applications; and • introduce stricter accreditation procedure for private education providers.10 5. Following the publication of the consultation, we met with Universities Scotland and representatives from several Scottish universities who expressed concerns in relation to the Government’s proposals. We announced our inquiry in March 2011 and took oral evidence from the National Union of Students, University and College Union Scotland, the Scottish Trade Union Congress, The University of Aberdeen, Robert Gordon University, Edinburgh Napier University and Universities Scotland in Aberdeen, and from Damian Green MP, Minister for Immigration, Home Office, and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in London. 6. The Government received over 31,000 responses to its consultation and, as a result, has amended some of the proposals.11 In addition, the Minister conceded that because of the complexity of the issues, some changes would be rolled out over a couple of years, and even those “finally nailed down next April [2012] may well still be slightly fuzzy round the edges”.12 7. We welcome the willingness of the Government to engage with the higher education sector, this Committee, and others in Scotland on this matter. We look forward to further concrete proposals designed to address the fears and concerns expressed to us in relation to the proposed changes to the student immigration system, and urge the Government to monitor these proposals to assess what impact they are having upon the world class education currently provided in Scotland. 9 Home Office and UKBA, The Student Immigration System, A Consultation, December 2010 10 Home Office and UKBA, The Student Immigration System, A Consultation, December 2010 11 Q 78. See also changes to the Immigration Rules announced on 22 March www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2011/june/17-t4-changes 12 Q 79 The Student Immigration System in Scotland 5 2 Student immigration in Scotland International students in Scotland 8. Scotland has over 24,000 non EU students, 11% of its total student population.13 The actual proportion varies between institutions: from 8.5% at Glasgow Caledonian University up to 30% at the University of St Andrews.14 The proportion of international students, used in this context to mean those from outside the EU, is generally higher on post-graduate courses: this averages 36.7% in Scotland15 and is as high as 48% at Heriot-Watt University.16 20% of university staff in Scotland are from “outside the UK”.17 9. A common theme in our evidence was
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