Sir, The UK’s higher education institutions include many of world renown. They host more than 250,000 international (non-EU) students. A further 25,000 follow pre-degree English pathway programmes.
When university funding is being severely cut it seems counter-productive to plan to halve visa numbers by 2015 (the Migration Advisory Committee’s estimate).
International students enrich our higher education, contribute well over £5 billion in fees and local spending per year, indirectly create thousands of jobs and generate goodwill for the UK.
The incidence of visa fraud among university students is under 2 per cent. Everything will be done to reduce this further. The Home Secretary might note the experience of the US and Australia, which seriously damaged their competitiveness by ill-aimed controls. We also note that the Coalition Agreement talks only of reducing “economic” immigration.
We write as an ad hoc, non-partisan group of peers and university chancellors (or equivalent) to urge the Government, even now, to review these potentially self-destructive proposals.
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Lord Phillips of Sudbury, Baroness Bottomley Of Nettlestone, Lord Bragg of Wigton, Lord Clement-Jones, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, Lord Rix, Lord Sawyer, Lord Tugendhat, Lord Woolmer of Leeds