ÌÇÐÄVlog

The government¡¯s decision to reduce the length of time international students can stay and work in the UK once they graduate will have little impact on migration numbers, the shadow education minister has said.

Speaking in London on 2 June, Neil O¡¯Brien said the policy,?first announced in May, was a ¡°trivial change¡±.

The Labour government reduced the length of the visa from two years to 18 months ¨C a move that ¡°I don¡¯t think anybody expects [to] make any difference to the overall numbers¡±, he said.

Discussing historical patterns of student migration to the UK, O¡¯Brien said: ¡°We can see that changes to policy have a much bigger impact on the numbers coming from poorer countries than they do [on those] from developed countries,¡± with the number of students from countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh more likely to fluctuate in line with policy shifts.

¡°Broadly speaking, what¡¯s happened is that the shift has been towards many more coming from relatively poorer countries, which have higher staying-on rates, where people are much less likely to leave,¡± he continued.

¡°As well as shifting towards those countries with higher staying-on rates, the staying-on rate itself has very much increased, so you have two things that are multiplying each other to lead to the student route becoming a large source of net migration over recent years.¡±

The shadow minister was speaking at an event organised by centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange, an organisation that he formerly directed.

His speech?followed the publication of a report?by the thinktank that called for international students to pay more to study in the UK and for the government to take action to prevent higher education being used as a migration pathway.?

O¡¯Brien said the Conservative Party was not yet ready to announce its position on higher education reform, but said the current model was ¡°neither fair to taxpayers nor graduates at the moment¡±, with both spending money on a system that doesn¡¯t necessarily result in better economic outcomes for students.?

¡°Given the pressures on the public finances, I do think that¡¯s something that we do need to look very closely at and to think about what the solution to that is because the situation we¡¯ve got at the moment is not ultimately satisfactory.¡±

He added that he believed it was ¡°implicit¡± in the?recent spending review?that the Labour government will permit university tuition fees to rise with inflation across this Parliament.?

¡°We will end up with a situation where the total amount you can borrow will go up from ?59,000 to ?66,000 outside London, or from ?69,000 to ?77,000 in London,¡± he said. ¡°That is not a small sum of money.¡±

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com