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Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow) (Lab): May I raise an issue that concerns the new clauses relating to terrorism issues mentioned by my hon. Friend the Minister? Because of a letter that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary sent in the middle of September to the spokespersons for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, we have a rough idea of what those new clauses will be. However, I saw yesterday a copy of a further letter that was sent to the two spokespersons on 12 October, which included drafts of the new clauses.
I appreciate that the final new clauses may not correspond exactly to those drafts, but the drafts were available in that letter and, according to the final sentence of the letter, it was to be placed in the Library and on the House of Commons website. When I went to the Library yesterday evening, it was unable to trace the letter for me and unfortunately the immigration and nationality directorate part of the Home Office website was not functioning yesterday afternoon and evening. It would help all members of the Committee if the Minister made that letter available to us, so that at an early stage in the proceedings we could have some idea of what the new clauses are likely to be. They will obviously be of considerable significance and may turn out to be among the most important aspects of the Bill.
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Mr. McNulty: Without wishing to cast aspersions on the Library, I can tell my hon. Friend that the letter was placed there last week.
Mr. Gerrard: They cannot find it.
Mr. McNulty: Clearly, if the letter cannot be found, we need to sort that out. It was certainly sent to both Opposition party spokespersons at the same time as it went to their principals on home affairs. I shall ensure that, by tomorrow, the letter is available to the entire Committee, as is only fair, and I shall discuss with officials how to facilitate a meeting between officials, the Opposition Front-Bench spokespersons and, indeed, anyone from the Labour side, so that they can sit down in a neutral way and talk through, in a briefing sense, the new clauses and what they mean.
Equally, without wishing to make disparaging remarks about anyone involved with the postal service, I understand that the draft code of practice for all employers on the avoidance of race discrimination in recruitment practices while seeking to prevent illegal working, the draft code on civil penalties for employers and—with apologies for the brevity of the title—an outline framework for a code of practice about data sharing in accordance with clause 31 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill between the immigration service, the police service and HM Revenue and Customs under e-borders were sent last week as well. They do not seem to have arrived, so I shall ensure that copies are available to the entire Committee, as I promised on Second Reading, for our sitting tomorrow, along with the letter. I am very keen that as much as possible is in front of all hon. Members as we discuss matters in Committee.
Mr. Gerrard: On that point, may I inform the Minister that those codes of practice arrived with me yesterday and, I assume, with other members of the Committee?
Mr. McNulty: It may be that at some stage—I am not entirely sure when—Orkney and Shetland became Oxford, West and Abingdon. Perhaps that is the dispute, but Manchester should have got the information anyway. If that is not the case, I will certainly ensure, for completeness, that copies of all the documents are available to all hon. Members tomorrow.
Mrs. Gillan: Perhaps I can explain why I do not have a copy of the information. My post goes directly to my constituency. If it arrived yesterday, it would have been forwarded to me and would have arrived today. I ask the Minister and, through him, departmental officials to note that that happens frequently with hon. Members, which means that we are deprived of information. If it is helpful, I have an extra copy of the letter of 12 October, which I am very willing to pass across and which the Minister can pass on to his colleague.
The Chairman: Before I put the question, let me say that the Committee is grateful to the Minister for his response to the questions raised. May I remind the Committee that he indicated that he would ensure that all matters of relevance would be available to all
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members of the Committee? That would overcome some of the problems that have been raised.
Question put and agreed to.
The Chairman: I should like now to remind Members that adequate notice should be given of all amendments. As a general rule, my co-chairman, Mr. Illsley, and I do not intend to call starred amendments. Would all Members also ensure that mobile phones, pagers and other electronic gadgets are turned off, or are on silent mode, during Committee proceedings? We now move to the Bill itself.
Clause 1
Variation of leave to enter or remain
Mrs. Gillan: I beg to move amendment No. 13, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out subsection (2).
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 14, in clause 11, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (3).
No. 77, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
'( ) In paragraph (g) (decision to move person unlawfully in the UK) at end, after ''Kingdom)'', insert ''save where that person had a right of appeal under paragraph (d) or (e) above (whether or not he exercised that right of appeal) and the Secretary of State or an immigration officer issues a certificate under section 96''.
( ) In paragraph (i) (decision to remove: family) at end, after ''(family)'', insert ''save where that person had a right of appeal under paragraph (d) or (e) above (whether or not he exercised that right of appeal and the Secretary of State or an immigration officer issues a certificate under section 96''.
( ) In paragraph (ia) (decision to remove: seamen and aircrews) at end, after ''(aircrews)'', insert ''save where that person has had an appeal under paragraph (d) or (e) above to which section 92 applies''.'.
Mrs. Gillan: In moving the amendments, I shall introduce some themes to which, I am sure, all members of the Committee will return again and again over the next few days of our deliberations. If there is no movement from the Government on this issue, I suspect that what I am about to say will be repeated, probably with considerable force, by hon. Members from all parts of the House and possibly and particularly by those in another place. However, it is my luck to be the first Member to introduce these points in this Committee.
I should also like at this stage to acknowledge the excellent briefings that have been provided by outside organisations. It is always helpful for Opposition parties to be briefed by organisations that have a great interest in the legislation before us, so that the points made by their members can be put with, we hope, accuracy and lucidity. I should like particularly to acknowledge the efforts of the Immigration Advisory Service, in the shape of Keith Best and his co-workers, and also Universities UK, in the shape of Vivienne Stern. I have been impressed by the quality of the briefings that they have provided us with. The Minister should be aware that those organisations are fully engaged in these issues, as are others that I shall mention later.
Very grave concerns are shared by a wide range of bodies about the Government's proposed removal of the rights of appeal in respect of refused entry clearance or leave to remain applications.
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Universities UK, which I have already mentioned, the Association of Colleges, the National Union of Students, and UKCOSA: The Council for International Education are all concerned about the impact that the measures will have on international students. They are supported by the Immigration Advisory Service and the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. All those bodies support the amendments. Before I go into the detail about them, I shall set out in relation to these provisions and those in clause 4 why the position of international students has been one of the major focuses of debate.
I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the statistics, but I will put the proposal in context: in 2004 there were 228,035 applications for leave to remain, of which 149,350—about 66 per cent.—were from international students. A very large proportion—about 30 per cent.—of international students have to apply for variation or extension of their leave to remain at some point during their time in the United Kingdom. Clause 1 will have a particular impact on such students, and a large number of them to boot.
There can be no doubt on either side of the House about the importance to the UK of attracting international students, as I am sure all members of the Committee will agree. There are 210,510 international students in higher education and an additional 75,000 international students studying in further education colleges.
Understandably, much attention has been given to the financial contributions such students make to universities and colleges, especially when their financing is so much in the forefront of our minds. International fee income accounts for 8 per cent. of the total income to the higher education sector, about £1.5 billion a year, which is no mean amount.
Fee income totals £58 million in the further education sector and, given the financial pressures that universities and colleges face, one can imagine that that income is vital to those organisations. But there is more to the financial equation: as well as the impact on college and university budgets, international students contribute about £4 billion to the UK economy, through spending on goods, services, accommodation and so on.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, perhaps soon to be leader of the Minister's party, has enthusiastically praised the education sector as one of the fastest growing and most important export industries in the UK. Apparently, it has already eclipsed food, tobacco, drink, insurance, ships and aircraft, earning the UK some £10.2 billion a year. The Chancellor, who is not one to be profligate with his figures, predicts that by 2020, education could be worth twice that sum.
The Bill will not help the Chancellor with his predictions; if anything, it will hinder them and reduce the estimates of growth in the sector. However, I want to emphasise that the issue is not just about money. International students are not only valuable to the UK in economic terms; their contribution in cultural, social and educational terms should not be underestimated.
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Vice-chancellors and principals tell us that their ability to attract the ablest students from around the world is vital to the intellectual character of our institutions and to our position as world leaders in teaching and research. Among other things, I am the international treasurer of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which is a non-political body that embraces all of us parliamentarians throughout the Commonwealth. When dealing with parliamentarians in other legislatures, I have been struck by how often their further education has been carried out in this country and how their feelings of good will towards this country are undeniable, as many of their formative years have been spent here.
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Thirty nine per cent. of postgraduate research students are international. In some disciplines, particularly subjects that have been made vulnerable by low domestic demand such as the sciences, engineering and technology subjects, international students are keeping departments open that would otherwise have to close. Incidentally, I noticed on the annunciator screens that there is currently a debate in Westminster Hall on forensic sciences and the continuation of the Forensic Science Service.
Given the fierce debate in this House in the previous Parliament about the provision of courses in subjects of national strategic importance following the closure of Exeter university's chemistry department, I should like to remind the Minister of the importance of international students in sustaining the UK's strength, particularly in science subjects, engineering and technology. They should be of great interest to the House. I sat in my early days in this place on the Science and Technology Committee and I am well aware of the shortage of expertise. I was encouraged to see that we emphasised the role for women in science and technology. There have been some good efforts from my own Government and subsequent Labour Governments to encourage more women into this area. These are vulnerable subjects.
Even if the Government were not persuaded by the argument that they should do all that they can to encourage international students, the EU Lisbon goal should give them pause for thought. The European Commission tells us that Europe is 700,000 scientists short of meeting the Lisbon goal of having competitive and dynamic, knowledge-driven economies in the world. Yes, we must produce more native scientists, but we cannot afford to lose our ability to attract and retain scientists from the rest of the world. I hope that the Minister will make particular reference to the Lisbon goal and let us know the Government's attitude to it.
I understand that the CBI also supports these amendments not only because it recognises the contribution that international students make at our universities and colleges to the strength of UK research, but because talented graduates from our universities and higher educational establishments are a rich recruiting pool for UK business and industry. Those who return home once they have completed their studies—the vast majority—retain influential links with the UK that can confer benefits to us in
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the long term through links with British business or as leaders in a wide variety of fields, including political fields.
I should like to explain why this is relevant to the amendments. The Government clearly recognise the benefits to the UK of attracting international students. The Prime Minister himself launched an initiative in 1999 to attract an extra 50,000 international students to higher education and another 25,000 to further education institutions by 2004. I understand that the Government are planning to renew that initiative and I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that.
The market for international students is fiercely competitive. Currently the UK attracts 13 per cent. of all international students, compared with 31 per cent. who are attracted to the United States of America. We are losing market share. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the UK lost 3 per cent. of its market share between 1998 and 2002. The USA also lost market share after tightening up on visas following 9/11, suffering a 2 per cent. drop in 2002–03. Even in the USA, they have looked at the figures and the fall-off of international students, have learned their lesson, and have eased up on visa restrictions. I should have thought that the UK could learn from that experience, and the Government should be thinking again on that point.
The UK cannot afford to be complacent. International students are important to the UK as a whole, and to our education institutions. As a matter of natural justice, the opportunity for young people from around the world to pursue the education that they feel most fits what they want to do in life is definitely a good thing. The Government have so far refused to accept that although they are seeking to attract international students through the Prime Minister's initiative, they are at the same time putting barriers in the way of UK educational institutions.
Ministers seem to have repeatedly been unable to recognise the evidence—anecdotal though it may be—that visa changes, including increases in the level of fees, have already had an impact on student recruitment. However, vice-chancellors report that there has already been a significant downturn in recruitment, and that visas are the main reason cited for that. There is a similar story in further education colleges, with many reporting decreases of 20 per cent. and over in international student institutions. That predicts a loss of between £1 million and £3 million this year. I should like to know what discussions the Minister has had with the Higher Education Funding Council and the Learning and Skills Council about the matter. If they are not worried about what this will do to higher and further education finances, they certainly should be. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point when he responds to the amendments.
Vice-chancellors and principals have attributed the downturn to a number of factors, including current economic circumstances and the strength of the dollar, but they also state unequivocally, based on their own
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experiences of travelling to countries from which they recruit students, and the experiences of their staff, that changes to the visa arrangements have been a major factor. Those changes have involved big increases in fees, both for leave to remain and initial entry clearance. The psychological impact on potential international students has far outweighed the actual financial impact on them. We are told that the impression among international students is that they are no longer welcome in this country.
Measures such as that which the Government intend to introduce through clause 1, which my amendments would remove, would do even more to put international students off studying in the UK. If potential international students think that they will be subject to sometimes arbitrary immigration decisions against which there is no right of appeal, and which might lead to their being unable to complete a course on which they embark, or graduate from that course, or finish writing a PhD, or transfer successfully from one course to another, they will choose to study elsewhere. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, members of the Commonwealth, the United States and Germany will be more than willing to make room for such students. Those countries are now aggressively marketing their own education facilities, often with reference to simpler, more welcoming visa arrangements.
I shall now address the detail of what the amendments would do. Subsection (2) would remove the right of appeal set out in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 against a refusal to vary a person's leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom. Subsection (3), which we seek to remove, would remove the right of appeal against a variation of a person's leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom. So what does that mean? A person whose visa is nearing expiry, and who applies for an extension to their period of leave to remain and is refused, will have no right of appeal against that decision. Similarly, a person in respect of whom a decision is made to curtail the period for which they are allowed to stay in the UK, will have no right of appeal against that decision. Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 would leave out those two subsections and thereby reinstate the right of appeal against refusal to extend a visa or a decision to curtail leave to remain. In fact, those amendments take us back to clause 82 of the 2002 Act, which provided that a person could appeal to an adjudicator against an immigration decision. An immigration decision included, in paragraph (d):
''Refusal to vary a person's leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom if the result of the refusal is that the person has no leave to enter or remain''
and in paragraph (e):
''Variation of a person's leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom if when the variation takes effect the person has no leave to enter or remain.''
The provisions in clause 1, which so many people find objectionable, seek to remove the appeal rights that were thought to be proper and decent only a few years ago. Therefore the first question to ask the Government is: can they produce hard evidence that will convince the Committee that those further
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restrictions on the right of appeal are necessary? I do not believe that the Minister and the Government have truly made that case.
The Government's approach to asylum and immigration needs to combine efficiency with humanity. Their inefficiency is legendary. Apart from their inability to remove failed asylum seekers and their abandonment of the original target of removing 30,000 failed asylum seekers a year, they have failed in many other respects. There continues to be a poor quality of initial decision making by entry clearance officers and Home Office officials, who are often dealing with decisions that can lead to huge hardship, but who do not receive enough training. Those initial decisions are still far too slow and are of uneven quality. The proof of that is clearly established by the fact that so many appeals are successful.
Let us look at some examples of people who would be affected by the provisions. An international student who has completed his undergraduate degree and who found, for example, that his visa did not enable him to stay long enough to attend a graduation ceremony, might apply to extend it. Under the provisions as currently drafted, if his application were turned down, he would have no right of appeal.
The same would apply to a student who had completed a course of study at a further education college or a school, and applied to extend his visa to take an undergraduate degree. What about a student who needed to repeat a year of his course? If his application were turned down there would be no right of appeal. Or what about a student who had to return home for urgent family reasons, who was given a year's sabbatical to deal with those family problems and who then wished to return to the UK to complete his education? What would happen in that case if his application were refused?
Or take another example: a young woman, who was in the UK as a student or in another capacity, might apply for a variation to her visa in order to remain in the UK as a spouse. If she were refused, she would have no right of appeal and might be unable to remain with her husband.
There are other examples—I have been given some real-life examples to look at. I understand that there was a student who sought entry clearance from Qatar for a one-year English course. He was refused on the criteria of intent to follow the course, intent to leave the UK and maintenance, but his appeal was allowed. The entry clearance officer in the case had concluded that the young student did not need to study English because his English was already quite good; that type of decision should have an appeal mechanism. In that case there was a subjective decision, which was overturned on appeal, but that avenue for a student will be removed in future.
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The Minister will probably say that the individual retains the right of appeal against a subsequent decision to remove him or her from the United Kingdom and that clause 1 merely simplifies the system to ensure that the student gets only one bite of the cherry, but that is not a satisfactory response,
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especially for the organisations involved outside the Committee Room, not least because it is not clear how he envisages the system working in practice.
In order for a decision to remove individuals to be taken, their period of leave to remain must have expired. Does the Minister seriously intend applicants for leave to remain to wait until they become illegal overstayers before they exercise the right of appeal against the decision not to extend their leave? Alternatively, do the Government intend that the right of appeal against a refusal to extend a visa is exercisable only from the applicant's home country? Those questions must be answered.
To put the matter in a human context, does the Minister want a student from, say, China, who wishes to extend his visa by a couple of weeks to attend his graduation ceremony, to go back to China to appeal against the decision not to provide the necessary extension? These are real and practical examples that he must address, and we would welcome clarification.
It would be unfair to force applicants for visa extensions to become illegal overstayers to exercise the right of appeal in-country. If an individual acquires such a status, it is bound to prejudice future applications for visas as well as removing the right to access services, including health care, and the ability to work if their conditions allow it. Notwithstanding the fact that their appeal may yet succeed, the individual would apparently have a track record of not complying with the terms of a visa, and an entry clearance officer considering a future visa application would be bound to look on such an application with suspicion.
The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that paragraph 320(11) of the immigration rules provides for entry clearance to be normally refused where there has been
''failure to observe the time limit or conditions attached to any grant of leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom''.
It is a bit of a muddle, to say the least. If an applicant for an extension must return home to appeal a negative decision, it seems likely that, in a significant number of cases, by the time the appeal is decided, the applicant will have missed the event—such as a graduation ceremony—for which they wanted to stay in the United Kingdom. That is not fictional; it is a practical example that has come from the universities. It is frequently why students wish to extend their visas.
In considering the matter, the Committee should bear in mind that it is not unusual for international students to be given insufficient length of leave when they are granted entry clearance at British diplomatic posts when they first come to the UK. Official guidance issued to entry clearance officers sets out the length of leave that students are to be given to include up to four months for postgraduate students in addition to the length of the course, in some cases to allow for circumstances such as those I have described. However, I understand that that guidance is not always followed.
I do not understand why the Government have chosen the proposed route to achieve a single point of appeal for international students. I ask the Minister to
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consider whether there is a better way to achieve this one-stop appeal. Perhaps he will explain why it would not be possible to amend the legislation so that an individual who has exhausted the right of appeal against a decision not to grant an extension to a visa can subsequently appeal against the decision to remove him or her from the UK. Have the Government considered the problems that I have described, and is the Minister willing to share his thinking on clause 1?
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