Immigration Policy (Higher Education)
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-10147, in the name of Humza Yousaf, on the impact of immigration policy on higher education in Scotland.
15:00
I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this important issue before Parliament. Higher education is one of Scotland’s greatest and most valued assets. It has a key role in supporting and developing our country, our economy, our culture and our society. Many—if not most—of us have benefited from a great university education. I see on the Opposition front bench Neil Bibby and Kezia Dugdale and note that some of us, including me, have experience that is a little more recent than that of others, although I could not possibly comment on others around the chamber.
That statement was a little ageist.
There are mature students too, of course.
Many of us have enjoyed a great university experience. Last year, the British Council’s report “A Strategic Analysis of the Scottish Higher Education Sector’s Distinctive Assets” identified five key features of the Scottish higher education sector: a joined-up and collaborative sector; quality assurance and credit recognition procedures that are owned by all universities; graduate employability and employment; innovative structures; and research excellence. Today, we will discuss the negative impacts of the United Kingdom Government’s immigration policies that we can already see on Scotland’s higher education asset and we will discuss the opportunities that an independent Scotland would provide to address that threat to our institutions.
In November 2012, Professor Pete Downes, as convener of Universities Scotland, rightly praised the
“brilliant track record of excellence-driven growth in international recruitment”
of universities in Scotland and the UK. However, he warned:
“As I scan the policy horizon, it’s hard to see a bigger risk, or a more poisonous gun pointed at our collective success.”
That was his view of the rapid and negative changes to the UK’s immigration system, which make it increasingly difficult for international students to come to Scotland and the rest of the UK to study. Professor Downes was right then and, today, his concerns are still shared across the Scottish higher education sector and by the Scottish Government.
One month ago today, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning set out to the Education and Culture Committee what independence will mean for his portfolio and highlighted the real and urgent need to ensure that Scottish universities can continue to attract the brightest and best students and researchers. I am determined that we take a positive approach in establishing an immigration system that sustains and extends Scotland’s “brilliant track record” and removes completely the threat of the “poisonous gun”.
Scotland is a highly attractive destination for international students. Our higher education system is underpinned by world-class research, our tremendous breadth of learning, including internationalisation, and a focus on enhancing all aspects of graduate employability. Scottish education is known around the globe for its excellence—it has often been mentioned to me at the highest levels of Government in many of the countries that I have travelled to in my role. People know of our five world-class institutions that are in the top 200 in the world and, for our gross domestic product, Scotland’s research is cited by other researchers around the world more than that of any other country.
The British Council highlighted last year that the overall learning satisfaction of international students in Scotland was better than that of those in the rest of the UK and in many of our European counterpart countries. I can tell members that we still have that. Just last week, the student academic experience survey of 15,000 students found that, of the four home nations, Scotland had the highest level of respondents who declared themselves to be fairly or very satisfied with the overall quality of their course—88 per cent. When we add to that Scotland’s natural assets—its beauty, its friendly cities, its world-renowned festivals and its great infrastructure—it is clear that this country is a wonderful place in which to study and is a highly attractive destination for international students.
I am proud that Scotland has one of the highest proportions of international students in the world. In 2012-13, there were 28,305 international students at all levels in our universities, from more than 180 countries. However, beneath those figures, the negative impact of the UK Government’s immigration policies is being seen and felt. The number of non-European Union enrolments—the figure takes into account the numbers for all years of study—was 0.7 per cent lower than it was the previous year. However, that masks a worrying drop in new entrants from countries such as Pakistan and India, which are two countries that have traditionally sent high numbers of students to study in Scotland. Those students have enriched our lives here in Scotland over the decades.
In March 2011, the UK Government announced its intention to close the post-study work visa route in April 2012. In the two years since then, the number of new entrants to Scottish higher education institutions from India has decreased by 58 per cent, the number from Pakistan has decreased by 38 per cent and the number from Nigeria has fallen by 22 per cent.
Will the minister perhaps inform the chamber whether, since the changes to the visa rules were introduced, the number of students coming from non-EU countries to study at Scottish universities has gone up or down?
As I said, the total enrolment has decreased by 0.7 per cent. The number of new entrants from India has decreased by 58 per cent, from Pakistan by 38 per cent and from Nigeria by 22 per cent.
I can help the minister by telling him that the actual number of students from outside the EU has gone up every year since 2007-08. The figure went up by 11 per cent in the last year alone. Unfortunately, the number of international students from outside the EU going to college in Scotland has halved. Does he regret that colleges do not feature in today’s debate?
No—I will certainly speak about colleges as I continue my remarks. Colleges Scotland has provided a very good briefing on how colleges have also been impacted by the UK’s policies. I saw its briefing before I came to the chamber and I will be happy to mention colleges as I go on.
Will the member give way?
I will make some progress and will let my good friend in later on.
The figures demonstrate the real threat, but it is not just apparent in Scotland. The largest decrease in England was also in the number of first year entrants from India—the figure was down by 23 per cent in a single year.
Daniel Stevens, the National Union of Students’ international officer, said:
“Many international students feel unwelcome in the UK as a result of the government’s hostile and overzealous policies.”
However, it is not just comparisons with other parts of the UK that concern us; we must also look at Scotland’s position relative to our key competitors around the globe.
While the number of international students in Scottish higher education institutions has fallen between 2011-12 and 2012-13, the figures for our main competitors in the English-speaking university markets have increased, as there has been 0.4 per cent growth in Australia, 7 per cent growth in the United States and 11 per cent growth in Canada. According to Universities Scotland, the number of students from India going to Australia has increased by 70 per cent.
I strongly believe that the crucial difference between Scotland, with our falling numbers, and our competitors, with their strong growth, is the ability to set their own immigration policy that supports and enhances their higher education sector.
I know that the minister went to India and Pakistan very recently. I understand that, on his return, the Scottish Government reduced its marketing budget for India and Pakistan by 50 per cent. Do you think that that has had an impact on the reduction in numbers?
Can members please remember to speak through the chair?
I ask members to look at the progress that Scotland has made on international marketing. We are higher up the brand index than we have ever been before. Lonely Planet said in its 2014 guide that we were third behind Brazil and, I think, Antarctica. We are doing well. The fact that our budget has been reduced slightly is a direct effect of the cuts that we have received, but Scotland has still managed to do very well. However, it would be ridiculous to equate that with the overzealous and regressive immigration policies, which I know the member has concerns about, too.
The view from the sector is very much shared. Professor Anton Muscatelli wrote that
“the UK Government is trying its best to destroy a global brand … There might not be quotas for overseas students in the UK, but the impact of the UK Government’s anti-immigration rhetoric has had the same effect.”
The Scottish Government shares that view. In the same article, the director of the migration observatory at the University of Oxford, Dr Scott Blinder, said:
“The Migration Observatory’s public opinion research has shown that a large majority in Scotland would like Holyrood rather than Westminster to make immigration policy for Scotland.”
In April this year, Lord Krebs, the chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, said:
“The overwhelming evidence … led us to conclude that changes to the immigration rules in this country have played a direct part in putting overseas students off from choosing the UK … We are calling on the”
UK
“Government to overhaul its immigration policies—in particular it needs to do away with the new rules on working after study.”
When I reflect on my student days, I think of the many friends from around the world that I still have to this day and who enriched my university experience. The “Richer for it” report, published by Universities Scotland in September, identifies a number of key qualitative benefits of the internationalisation of our higher education sector. However, perhaps even easier to quantify is the significant economic contribution that international students make. In 2012-13, Scottish higher education institutions received an overall income of £374 million from non-EU international students through their tuition fees, but those students also pay for accommodation and contribute to the Scottish economy in other ways, to the tune of around £441 million a year.
The longer-term impact of immigration policies on the economy is also important. Earlier this year, David Watt, the executive director of the Institute of Directors in Scotland said:
“We have an immigration policy that’s largely led by the southeast of England and it’s a significant problem for Scotland”.
Further, over the weekend, even Theresa May, the Home Secretary, seemed to dismiss the arbitrary cap that the UK Government has placed on immigration, speaking about her desire to reduce immigration by “tens of thousands”, not hundreds of thousands.
This Government rejects the negative rhetoric on immigration and welcomes the contribution that migrants make to our society, our economy and our culture. That is why, in “Scotland’s Future”, we set out our proposals for taking responsibility for our own immigration system, promising to introduce a controlled immigration system that meets our social, economic and cultural needs. An important part of that will be the reintroduction of the post-study work visa. That fresh talent visa was welcomed enthusiastically by us when it was introduced in 2004 by the previous Administration and was so popular that it was replicated by the rest of the UK. However, because of the crude cap that the present UK Government wished to impose, it removed the post-study work visa, in a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. International students in some of our universities tell me that they valued the post-study work visa.
Wherever I travel around the world, particularly in India and Pakistan, there is, if nothing else, a very negative perception that the UK is closing its borders. I am clear that the current UK approach on immigration is damaging Scotland’s ability to compete in the international student market. Scotland is a welcoming place and is open for academic and research business. It is more than willing to enable those with talent to stay with us if they wish to build lives and careers here.
Student migration is positive for Scotland in economic, academic, social and cultural terms. With the levers that independence will afford us, we will be able to move away from the negative rhetoric of the UK Government and its restrictive immigration policies. We will also be in a stronger position to promote Scotland and her universities overseas, with a dedicated diplomatic and trade network.
We will ensure that the immigration policies that we introduce, including the post-study work visa, will allow Scotland to attract and retain world-class talent, contributing to our education system and the Scottish economy.
I move,
That the Parliament is proud that Scotland is an attractive destination for international students; recognises that a culturally diverse student and teaching body in Scottish higher education institutions enriches intellectual, social and cultural life; welcomes the valuable contribution that international students make to the Scottish economy; shares the serious concerns raised by university principals and vice-chancellors that current UK immigration policy is damaging to the higher education sector and to Scotland’s international reputation; believes that Scotland must distance itself from the negative rhetoric of the UK Government and its restrictive immigration policies, and further believes that an immigration policy designed to meet Scotland’s needs, including a post-study work visa scheme, is needed to meet Scotland’s educational, social and economic ambitions.
15:13
The Labour Party always welcomes the chance to discuss how we can improve higher education in Scotland and we therefore welcome the debate this afternoon and the opportunity to examine the role that immigration plays in our higher education system.
On this side of the chamber, we recognise the important role that international students play, and we make clear our opposition to the coalition Government's approach to immigration, particularly with regard to higher education. We also stress our belief that the Scottish Government could also be doing more to attract international students.
Much of the motion concerns the damaging effect of the Tory-led UK Government’s immigration policies on universities. I do not disagree, but it would be extremely naive to think that only our universities are facing the challenge. I share the view of Mary Senior, of the University and College Union Scotland, who told the Education and Culture Committee:
“The UK Government’s immigration policy is holding back not only universities in Scotland but universities right across the UK.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 25 March 2014; c 3857.]
The Labour Party acknowledges the huge contribution that immigrants have made to Scotland and the UK over many decades and the contribution that immigrants continue to make to our universities and colleges. I mention colleges deliberately, because the Scottish Government has again ignored further education in its motion.
The Colleges Scotland briefing for the debate highlights a significant drop in the number of foreign students at our colleges. Given that the Scottish Government has overseen a staggering cut of 140,000 in the number of students going to college in Scotland—from anywhere—that should not come as a surprise. The trend needs to be urgently addressed; the Scottish Government is responsible for that trend.
It is precisely because the Labour Party recognises the positive contribution that international students make to our education system and communities that First Minister Jack McConnell’s Administration introduced the fresh talent initiative in 2004. Fresh talent was a bespoke programme, which was designed to address the biggest challenge that faced Scotland—a declining population. Central to the initiative was the plan to allow overseas graduates from Scottish universities who expressed an intention to live and work in Scotland to stay on for two years following the completion of their course, to seek employment.
It is important to recognise that the Scottish Executive was required to work to secure the powers to take such an approach in a devolved Parliament.
Does the member agree that the current situation is unacceptable? A Scottish Administration can introduce a laudable initiative such as fresh talent only for the UK Government to withdraw it, against Scotland’s interests. Does the member agree that it would be better to retain the power here, so that no other Parliament or Government could get rid of such policies?
It would surprise the minister a great deal if I agreed that we should become independent and have our own immigration policy. I do not subscribe to that view.
The introduction of the fresh talent initiative shows that, despite what the Government says week in and week out, change is possible when there is the political will to achieve it. What is more, the fresh talent working in Scotland scheme, which was announced in February 2004, was operating by the following summer and covered students who graduated that year.
Labour members are proud that we took that approach in 2004. We are proud that we secured the agreements that were needed to make it happen as quickly as it did in 2005. In 2008, as the minister said, the scheme was taken over by a UK-wide scheme which looked to engage with immigrants in a positive way.
Our connection with the fresh talent initiative and commitment to encouraging international students to help Scotland to flourish is all the more reason to disagree with the changes that the coalition Government has made. However, our success in creating the fresh talent initiative shows that we can tackle the issue if we use the force of political will and creative policies.
I agree with the member on the importance of political will, but does he concede that an infinite amount of political will is of little assistance when there is no constitutional power to use it?
No, and I will give the reason for that—[Interruption]—if members care to listen.
The First Minister was talking about the national health service in Wales today. Perhaps the Scottish Government should consider what lessons can be learned from Wales when it comes to attracting international students. In Wales, where Labour is in power, the proportion of international postgraduates is the largest in the UK, at 41 per cent—the proportion is 36 per cent in Scotland.
After the coalition Government ended the fresh talent initiative in 2010-11, many people expected to see a drop in overseas students coming to study here. However, the figures show that in the following year, 2011-12, the number of international students rose by 2 per cent, from 27,880 to 28,500. I accept that we need to look at the figures in detail, as the minister said, because the levels from different countries vary.
In doing so, we must acknowledge, as the Tory amendment does, that the student visa system has been open to abuse in some circumstances, so we need to look closely at temporary student visas for short courses to see whether they are being abused. Labour accepts that and I know that it is in the Conservative amendment. I am sure that all parties would agree with that.
The SNP wants to use the debate to talk about the coalition Government’s immigration policy as if it is a threat to the future of our higher education system. As proud as I am of Labour’s delivery of the very system that has been rolled back, the numbers show that overseas students continue to come here to study. Indeed, the numbers continued to increase after the change to the system. So, although I disagree with the Con-Dem Government’s policies, that is what the statistics show.
We fear that those policies could be damaging over time, but the reality is that independence is the biggest threat to higher education in Scotland. Just two weeks ago, I spoke in the debate on the life sciences and highlighted the benefits to Scotland of a single research system across the UK. The funding system gives a disproportionate level of research funding to our excellent universities. The facts speak for themselves. In 2012-13, Scottish higher education institutions secured £257 million of UK research council grants. That represents 13.1 per cent of the UK total, which is significantly more than our 8 per cent of UK gross domestic product and 8.4 per cent of the UK population. The reality is that the best way to keep being part of the UK research council funding is to keep being part of the UK.
It would also be remiss of me not to recognise the positive role that UK embassies have played in promoting our universities around the world. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office operates in more than 170 countries, which gives our universities a global presence and actively encourages people from all over the world to come to Scotland to study.
While reflecting on the good work that is done by UK embassies, why does the member think that an independent Scotland’s Scottish embassies, which would promote Scotland 365 days of the year, would be incapable of doing that job on a much better scale?
The UK embassies promote the UK and Scotland 365 days of the year. The fact is that they operate in 170 countries and I would welcome more details from the minister of how many embassies an independent Scotland would have. It is certainly not going to be the same number as the UK has at the moment.
We want to attract foreign students. We want to make it possible for people from overseas to come to Scotland to work, study and live. We want Scotland to be a welcoming and inclusive country, as I am sure everyone in the chamber does. That is why we believe that it is counterintuitive for the Scottish Government to want to discriminate against English, Welsh and Northern Irish students if Scotland were to become independent. Not only is the white paper policy of charging students from the rest of the UK tuition fees while not charging other EU students illegal under EU law, the reality is that independence would mean that our higher education funding would be left with a massive black hole of at least £150 million as a result. Where will the money come from to fill that gap?
Our ambition is for an open, welcoming, and tolerant Scotland that does not discriminate on the ground of nationality. I note that the minister did not refer to that part of our amendment.
I thank the member for giving way again. The member used the phrase “discriminate on the ground of nationality”. He will, of course, be aware that Belgium and Austria have made similar arguments to those that are being advanced by the Scottish Government on objective justification for discrimination when it comes to students from other parts of the EU, on the ground of not nationality but residency.
Neil Bibby, I can give you around another minute to come to a conclusion.
On the arguments around residency, I refer the minister to the recent Scottish Parliament information centre briefing on tuition fees in the rest of the UK and the Universities Scotland legal advice that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning likes to quote that says that, if any objective justification could be successfully argued—and there are major doubts about that—the residency requirement would need to be applied to all students and not just those who are resident in other parts of the UK. Essentially, that means that what is said in the white paper is inaccurate.
If we are to achieve our ambitions for higher education, we must face up to the challenges that currently exist within the sector. We have the highest drop-out rate, the worst retention rate and damningly low levels of student support. Scottish students are being let down by the Scottish Government. Although we recognise that the issue of student visas needs to be addressed by the UK Government, I urge the Scottish Government to address the important issues for which it is responsible in higher and further education.
We want to have a system of higher and further education in Scotland that is outward looking and meets the needs of our students. We recognise the difficulties faced by our universities across the UK as a result of the coalition Government’s policy, but we also know that something can be done about it here and now. The stakes for higher education institutions, their staff and their students are high. We hope that the UK Government and the Scottish Government will work together, as Labour did in government, to address the issues that our students face.
I move amendment S4M-10147.3, to leave out from second “that Scotland” to end and insert:
“in a modern, welcoming and inclusive Scotland where the diversity of its many cultures is celebrated; recognises the success of Labour’s Fresh Talent initiative, which encouraged foreign nationals to work, study and thereafter stay in Scotland; believes that independence would threaten higher education in Scotland through its impact on research council funding and the ability to promote Scotland’s universities on a global stage through the UK’s network of embassies and consulates, and also believes that there would be significant legal and financial consequences of the Scottish Government’s intention to discriminate against students from the rest of the UK in the event of independence.”
15:25
I am grateful to the minister for bringing this debate to Parliament. It is important to debate this topic, which is controversial. Just like with yesterday’s debate on childcare, it is important to debate this topic in the context of what is right—in this case for our higher education institutions—rather than just in the context of the referendum debate.
Notwithstanding the past and current ability of the sector to attract international students in what is an increasingly competitive international market, one cannot fail to listen to the warning from university principals and Universities Scotland—and indeed Universities UK—who have deep-seated concerns about some aspects of Westminster policy that they see as unnecessarily restrictive.
If the cabinet secretary was here, he would know, from two public debates that we have had on this issue in recent times—one was on the BBC and the other was at the University of Dundee, in the presence of Peter Downes—that I agree with some of the concerns, which I made plain to Theresa May and David Willetts on separate occasions back in 2012.
In particular, I think that our universities are absolutely right to be concerned about the lack of flexibility in the timescales for the award of visas and, just as important, the lack of transparency when it comes to visa refusals, most especially for PhD research staff contracts that run beyond 18 months. Indeed, those two issues have been central to the concerns of many of the universities in Scotland, given that they leave doubt in the minds of students and staff about post-study work arrangements and can hinder future planning and investment. I heard those concerns for myself probably most forcefully in the Aberdeen medical school, and they have also featured at meetings of the cross-party group on colleges and universities in the Parliament.
There is a real issue, and I hope that it is not too late for the Home Secretary to pay attention to the extent of the concern, including that raised in six Westminster committees, that international students should not be included in the UK Government’s net migration targets. It is simply not acceptable that restrictions mean that our post-study work arrangements, or what are called tier 1 arrangements, are not on the same competitive basis as countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I personally believe that Universities Scotland makes a very strong case for extending the length of time that international graduates are given to get a job—not indefinitely, which would not be acceptable, but certainly by at least a year.
That said, it is important to set this whole debate in context and to dispel some of the myths that have crept into it. Those myths have come not just from political parties; there has been a lot of misunderstanding about the issues. Neil Bibby was quite right to say that this debate has its foundation in a debate about colleges. The UK coalition Government took action because the number of bogus students who were entering further and higher education created considerable difficulties. It was not just a case of bogus students; as we all know, there were some bogus colleges as well.
For me, immigration policy needs to be balanced. It needs to be wholly welcoming to those who can make a substantial economic, social and cultural contribution to their institutions, just as the minister has outlined, and to their wider community, but it should be punitive towards those who merely wish to take advantage of it for their own ends. There is no question but that that was the case four or five years ago.
If last week’s European elections told us anything, they demonstrated how careful politicians have to be when it comes to handling the whole issue of immigration and the rhetoric that accompanies it.
I welcome the member’s comments thus far. The point that she makes is fundamental: we have to challenge the negative rhetoric that often comes with discussion of immigration, which is a very sensitive issue. We saw that in the European elections, which she talked about. Up here in Scotland, this Government has been unashamed in challenging that rhetoric and therefore we won the European elections, with the United Kingdom Independence Party in fourth place. Other parties pandered to that rhetoric and substantially got beaten in the European elections. Does the member not think that it is time to challenge that rhetoric as opposed to conforming to it?
I am sorry, but I do not accept that analysis.
It is quite untrue.
Indeed, it is untrue. Where I agree with the minister is that we have to be very sensitive about the issue of immigration and the rhetoric that goes with it.
I am pointing out that the reason why, in developing immigration policy, the Westminster Government has had to make significant cuts and changes is that there was an influx of bogus students between 2008 and 2009. That is the central issue here. That is why the policy was put in place by the UK Government. Such an influx is not acceptable to any of our institutions, nor, I believe, to any of our political parties. It is not good for our higher and further education institutions if those bogus students are able to take advantage of student visas, because that is a disadvantage to other students.
The fresh talent initiative was an important Scottish innovation that ought to be brought back. The doctorate extension scheme that has been introduced is a good thing. The graduate entrepreneur route into PhD thresholds ought to be brought back.
Let us be absolutely clear about this, though. The problems that we have must be set in context because, otherwise, we will end up in considerable difficulty. It is not helpful to say that everything about immigration policy and coalition Government politics is bad for our universities. That is completely untrue.
I move amendment S4M-10147.1, to leave out from “shares” to end and insert:
“sympathises with the concerns expressed by university principals and vice-chancellors regarding the lack of sufficient flexibility in the student visa system, but believes that UK immigration policy must be placed in context; recognises that, under the previous Labour administration, the student visa system was routinely abused and that measures had to be taken to address this; understands that a balance needs to be struck between welcoming international students and maintaining public confidence in the immigration system, and calls on the UK Government to continue to engage with Scottish universities so that their concerns are addressed as quickly as possible.”
15:31
I thank the minister for bringing the debate to Parliament. I start, as others have done, by acknowledging the impressive track record of our universities in attracting students from all over the world. In what is, by any measure, a highly competitive environment, that record of success is no coincidence and reflects the high quality of the learning, research and overall student experience for which our universities are rightly renowned.
In return, as Universities Scotland reminds us in its briefing, those international students contribute an estimated £800 million in fees and wider expenditure in our economy. More than that, they provide a cultural and social infusion to our universities that undoubtedly broadens, deepens and enriches the learning experience for Scotland-domiciled students.
This issue matters, therefore, and it matters that we find ways that enable our universities to deliver greater success in future against the backdrop of increased competition from a host of other countries. On that, there will be unanimity throughout the chamber. I assure the minister that he will find no disagreement from me—just as he did not from Liz Smith, who made an excellent speech—that aspects of current UK immigration policy and the way in which the debate around immigration is framed at times are acting as an obstacle to achieving that objective.
My amendment quotes my colleague Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who has been particularly critical, as have I, about the inclusion of students in the net migration figures. Given the wider policy on net migration, that has the potential to send conflicting signals and inhibit the development of sensible policy on higher education.
However, we should also be clear—and here the minister and the education secretary need to take care that they are not part of the problem—that there is no cap on genuine students coming to Scotland or the rest of the UK from outwith the European Union: none at all. That is why, when Universities Scotland talks about the risks associated with the
“perception of UK government policy”,
that should give Mr Russell and Mr Yousaf pause for thought that, in their eagerness to demonise all things UK, they could be accused of contributing to those very same risks.
By way of example, Mr Russell’s assertions at the Education and Culture Committee recently that international student numbers at Scottish universities have gone down since visa rules changed back in 2010 were wrong. The numbers have gone up, albeit not as much as one would have hoped, and with a worrying drop—as the minister rightly pointed out—from key countries such as Pakistan and India.
However, that is an illustration of the dangers of Mr Russell’s approach, as well as further evidence of a somewhat cavalier attitude when it comes to knowing whether figures are going up or down.
I regret what Liam McArthur has to say on the issues. When questioned on the matter in India, I put right some of those misconceptions. He can read about that in The Times of India.
Does the member agree not with us but with Professor Anton Muscatelli, who said that the UK Government is
“trying its best to destroy a global brand”.
There might not be quotas for overseas students, but the impact of the UK Government’s anti-immigration rhetoric has had the same affect.
I have just set out the evidence to the contrary. To an extent, although I understand the concerns of Anton Muscatelli and others in the sector, we need to be careful with the language that we use. That said, I agree that changes to policy, presentation and perception are in the interests of higher education across the UK, including here in Scotland. That is also reflected in Liz Smith’s amendment, not least in relation to the need for greater flexibility in the student visa system.
The Liberal Democrats helped to secure improvements just over a year ago that enabled an extension to post-study work, but we need to go further and recognise that countries such as Australia, the United States and Canada have upped their offer and increased their attractiveness to international students as a result.
I will continue to argue the case for change—change that enjoys cross-party support, as Universities Scotland acknowledges. As ever, where the consensus falls apart is over the nationalists’ insistence that it is only by breaking up the UK that the situation can be improved. Not only is that untrue, it offers a potentially toxic remedy, as Neil Bibby’s amendment rightly identifies. For example, leaving the UK would put at risk our ability to access critical research funding. Scottish universities punch well above their weight in UK research council allocations and funding from major UK charities and trusts.
Professor Paul Boyle of Research Councils UK has told this Parliament that there is “no international precedent” for this scale of research collaboration across borders.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not at the moment.
While no one is questioning that Scottish universities attract a proportionately higher share of funding based on the excellence of their research, it is naive to pretend that those arrangements would simply continue unaffected were Scotland to leave the UK. I suspect that the SNP knows that—why else would it feel the need to misrepresent the views of Professor Boyle in the way that it has?
The member must give way on that point.
I will give way to the minister.
Liam McArthur said that the SNP is misrepresenting Professor Boyle’s views. What Professor Boyle said is clear. I do not know whether the member has had a chance to read what he said. He said:
“We strongly support Scotland retaining its position in a single research ecosystem ... We would like to see a single research system continue whether there is a yes vote for independence or not.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 25 March 2014; c 3891, 92]
How have we possibly misrepresented his views?
I will give back that time to Liam McArthur.
Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am sure that Professor Boyle would say that, as would we all. However, I think that he went on to say that there is “no international precedent” for such collaboration across borders, so it is naive to assume that that would simply take place.
Restricting the access of our universities to the vast network of UK embassies, consulates and overseas trade support would also do nothing to enhance the ability of our HE sector to compete for students in this highly competitive environment.
As for nationalist claims that students from elsewhere in the UK would continue to be charged tuition fees for studying in Scotland, the European Commission has made it quite clear that such discrimination would be illegal under European Union law, saddling Scottish ministers with a bill of around £150 million. There is even evidence that the appeal of our universities to international students could be diminished by our not being part of the United Kingdom.
Last week, Roderick Campbell raised concerns that were highlighted in a recent survey of international students about independence, but Mr Russell chose to entirely ignore his question—presumably on the basis that such impertinence from Government party back benchers is not worthy of a response. Mr Campbell should have received the answer that the concerns that he raised are valid and underscore the importance of retaining what the authors of the survey called “brand UK”.
Will the member give way?
I am afraid that I will not.
That, as I have accepted, is not an argument for the status quo. We need a change in the rhetoric and a more consistently positive and welcoming message. In that context, I agree with Universities Scotland that the Prime Minister’s statements in India recently were helpful. More of that is needed.
On policy, while stability is desirable, again we need to see further movement. Students should be taken out of net migration figures and improvements to post-study work opportunities should be provided. The previous fresh talent initiative shows what can be done and we could do worse than look once again at that model.
I recognise the economic, social and cultural benefits that we gain from our universities’ ability to attract large numbers of international students. Likewise, I understand and accept the sector’s concerns about how their efforts to do more in that area are being constrained. I will continue to do what I can, on a cross-party basis, to help deliver the changes that we need to see. However, the SNP needs to accept that independence is not the answer to every question or the solution to every problem. In this case, the medicine that the SNP is prescribing is simply a poison pill.
I move amendment S4M-10147.2, to leave out from “shares” to end and insert:
“notes the comments of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who has made the case for international students studying in the UK; notes in particular his view that declining international student numbers being seen as a triumph for immigration control is ‘absurd’ and ‘seriously distorting the debate on sensible university policy’; recognises that there is no cap on the number of overseas students able to study in the UK and that the UK Government has no intention of introducing one; welcomes the concessions secured by the Liberal Democrats to the UK Immigration Bill to ensure that the UK still attracts skilled and talented people who want to study or work hard and contribute to economic growth and wider society, and welcomes the positive statements that have been made by the UK Government about the value of international students.”
15:39
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, which is an opportunity to recognise the vital contribution that international students make to higher education, research excellence, the wider economy and the cultural diversity of Scotland. Scottish universities have an excellent track record of attracting international students and have a teaching and research offer that allows them to compete successfully in a fiercely competitive global recruitment environment.
Scotland derives huge social, economic and cultural benefit from the 28,500 international students who study in our 19 universities and higher education institutions. Universities Scotland estimates the economic impact of international students in Scotland to be £337 million every year in fees and £441 million in off-campus expenditure.
As the MSP for Edinburgh Southern, I am incredibly privileged to represent not one but two of Edinburgh’s world-class universities: the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier University, both of which have campuses in my constituency. More than 30 per cent of Edinburgh Napier University’s student population is international and the University of Edinburgh has perhaps the largest total cohort of international students in Scotland. According to the University of Edinburgh’s annual review of 2012-13, 12 per cent of its students are domiciled in the EU, excluding the UK, and 27 per cent are internationally domiciled, excluding the EU.
One of the strengths of the higher education sector in Scotland, which contributes to Scotland having some of the world’s top-ranking universities, is its ability to attract and retain some of the finest academics and researchers from around the world.
Scotland performs very well in foreign direct investment, leading the way in the UK on projects and jobs created outside London. Our universities are among the key pull factors that contribute to Scotland’s attractiveness to investors. Their key outputs of skills and research are cited by almost half of companies as a key reason for their investment in Scotland.
As the MSP for two universities, I will highlight the effect of UK immigration policy on higher education in Scotland. The university sector in Scotland speaks with one clear voice that the UK’s regressive policy on student immigration and its obsession with lowering immigration from outside the EU presents a real and immediate threat to the entire higher education sector in Scotland. It is encouraging that, on that point, there appears to be consensus across the Parliament.
Universities Scotland makes the point forcefully:
“The UK’s visa regime is now significantly more restrictive than that applied by a range of competitor nations who are vigorously seeking to attract talented learners from around the world. This places the UK, including Scotland, at a competitive disadvantage.”
Key competitors, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, have continued to expand their international student numbers, as Liam McArthur acknowledged. Between 2011-12 and 2012-13, international student numbers in three other key English-speaking university markets increased, with 0.4 per cent growth in Australia, 7 per cent growth in the United States and 11 per cent growth in Canada.
The fact is that the number of first-year international students studying at Scottish universities has fallen significantly. According to the UK Higher Education Statistics Authority, applications from India fell by 58 per cent, those from Pakistan fell by 38 per cent and those from Nigeria fell by 22 per cent. That fall in admissions from some of the most important emerging economies in the world not only places a stranglehold on a valuable revenue stream for Scottish universities but threatens to damage Scotland’s well-deserved and hard-earned international reputation.
It is ironic that a recent Universities UK survey of international student recruitment offices in higher education institutions throughout the UK found that only 30 per cent of Scottish institutions were meeting their own targets for international student recruitment. That demonstrates that the capacity exists within institutions to recruit higher numbers of international students but the current policy environment does not support that ambition.
The Scottish Government’s white paper pledges to take a different approach to immigration from that of the Westminster Government. The Scottish Government quite rightly sees immigration as an aid to healthy population growth in Scotland.
Unlike those on the far right of politics, I do not believe that Scotland is full. Our immigration policy and our attitude towards international students should reflect our values as a welcoming and inclusive modern country.
Reflecting on the UK’s policy of curbing the entry of international students, Professor Anton Muscatelli, the principal of the University of Glasgow, stated:
“It’s a message that says ‘don't come here, we’re closed for business, closed for education’ ... It’s exactly the opposite message that a number of other countries are sending, including the US, Canada and Australia. I don't think we should be there as a country.”
Given the positive benefits to Scotland’s economy, culture and society from international students, the impact that our universities make across the world and Scotland’s reputation as a country that welcomes with an open mind and open arms those from overseas, I cannot but agree whole-heartedly with Professor Muscatelli.
15:45
I thank the Scottish Government for bringing forward this debate on an issue that is rightly at the forefront of minds across the chamber.
I would also like to make the minister aware that, like my Labour colleagues, I have a degree, but I gained it as a mum who was working full time. I went to Napier College, which became a university while I was there. I am very grateful for the opportunities that I got at the college, and I probably would not be here today if I had not got that chance in life and the chance to work really hard.
In that sense, it makes me even more disappointed that only higher education is mentioned in the motion. I think that that flags up a little bit of the SNP attitude toward Scotland’s colleges that has delivered unprecedented cuts in college budgets and therefore to opportunities for progression for people like me, particularly those who are returning to the workforce, upskilling or from traditionally marginalised groups. As my colleague Neil Bibby has outlined, the current decisions made by Governments in both Holyrood and Westminster have resulted in drastically fewer foreign students attending our colleges, which has a numerical and financial impact on them that is much greater than that on our elite universities.
With the caveat that I think that we should be talking about much more than just higher education in the debate, I will speak to several interrelated points for the rest of my time.
The first point is that I share the Scottish Government’s concerns about the impact of the current Conservative immigration policy. In particular, I am concerned about including students within the blanket immigration cap. That policy treats all legal immigration in the same way—as something bad for Britain that should be reduced—and that is wrong. I and the Labour Party strongly believe that it is deeply damaging to the UK’s diversity and economy that the number of fee-paying overseas students has fallen at a time when the international market for universities in comparable countries is growing. That is why university students should be removed entirely from the net migration target.
Secondly, I want to emphasise that, as always, changing the constitution is not the way to solve those problems. In this area of trying to achieve social justice, erecting a border is not the place to start or end. The solution is to elect a Government for the whole UK that is committed to exempting university students from any net migration target and creating a managed system that is in Britain’s interests. It just so happens that we have a political party that can do that in 2015. We do not need independence to implement positive policies that make allowances for Scotland’s differences while allowing us to remain part of a strong partnership in research and teaching.
In the past, we have created schemes in which we have co-operated, rather than simply take pointed stances against the UK Government. Indeed, the Government’s motion states that
“a post-study work visa scheme ... is needed to meet Scotland’s educational, social and economic ambitions.”
I could not agree more that such a programme can work, but where I differ from the Government is that I know that such a system can work under devolution because we saw one implemented in Scotland in 2005—the fresh talent initiative—following the kind of co-operation between the UK and Scottish Governments that I have been talking about. The fresh talent scheme was continued until 2008, when it became such a success that it was rolled out across the entire UK. Sadly, however, it was withdrawn by the Conservatives in 2012.
When we have Governments that are willing to engage with each other and co-operate, we can ensure, as we emphasised in our devolution commission, that we properly account for distinct Scottish needs. We see in other countries, too, allowances being made for different areas within them—for example, there are such systems in Australia and Canada. In our devolution commission report, we identified that there are some barriers to setting up such schemes but that we ultimately believe that reasoned and agreed variations between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom are justifiable and workable. The fresh talent scheme has shown us that the way forward is through co-operation. It is up to the Scottish Government to show that it is willing to agree.
My third point is one that the SNP should reflect on, as it is crucial to its proposed immigration and higher education policy. All the discussion in the debate has focused on international migration, but the Scottish Government’s proposals on the international and EU fee situation post-independence have been particularly doubted by many.
I find it shocking that a Government that paints itself as open, egalitarian and wishing to co-operate with the rest of the UK post-separation is happy to discriminate against those from one specific other state. Our nation’s most respected academics, including the chair of European Union law at the University of Edinburgh, have lined up to criticise the white paper’s failure
“to unpack the layered system of derogation and justification”.
The legal test is not simply an attempt to show objective justification as some SNP members would have us believe. Rather, the newly independent Government would have to show that its policy was not directly discriminatory. Direct discrimination simply cannot be justified by any objective justification; it is a much narrower set of derogations that are allowed.
The Scottish Government has not even attempted to engage in debate on what derogations it may seek following independence, and because the residence requirements that are outlined target only those from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, it seems that even the objective justifications that Mr Russell has outlined in the past rest on a shoogly peg. The European Court has only once accepted—in the case of Bressol and others—that a member state may limit access to university courses, and even then it was in specific circumstances that related to public health, and not on cost grounds. The idea that blanket treatment for residents of a single member state would be found proportionate is frankly a little far-fetched, and it is unfair for the Government not to face up to that major challenge before September.
15:51
I always welcome the opportunity to debate the Scottish Government’s record on higher education and the valued contribution of international students. I say at this point that I do not have a degree, but I still value what higher education can give to our communities. In towns and cities throughout Scotland, international students are making a difference not just economically but also as part of our society.
I always get a difficult time in here because people say that I talk as if all roads lead to Paisley, but it is what I know and what I have experienced over the years. The University of the West of Scotland in Paisley does well when it comes to international students, and we have managed to retain quite a few of them over the years. Every single year, Renfrewshire Council sponsors a get-together and ceilidh in order to welcome them and encourage them to enjoy the town. Most of the time, those events are alcohol free. We could possibly all learn from that, given how much they enjoy the event as they get involved in Scotland’s culture.
Those students come over here because of our establishments and the experience that they can get. One thing that was mentioned earlier is what they give to Scotland. Well, there is about £441 million of off-campus expenditure. In my constituency, the university makes a massive contribution to the town. A couple of years ago, the international students were outside the town. Now, they have a campus in the centre of the town and they can stay there as well. That has made a difference. It was designed in order to make sure that we could get people to stay within the town. When we are encouraging students to come here from abroad, it is important that we are welcoming so that they want to be part of the community.
I would like to comment on some of the things that have been said during the debate. The SNP was extremely supportive when the previous Scottish Executive put forward the fresh talent initiative, which it thought was the way forward. The initiative was then adopted by the Westminster Government; it was slightly adapted—some would say that it was watered down—but it was adopted. However, the problem is that it was taken away by another Westminster Government.
I said yesterday that we constantly hear the argument in Scotland that one more push for a Labour Administration will make everything different. Labour members accuse us of saying that independence will be the answer to everything. Well, I am accusing them of saying that another Labour Government will make everything better. That clearly does not happen: every single time Labour has had opportunities, it has ended up with the same Westminster compass going back and forward between the two big parties. Our idea and our belief is that we can try to make things different. We can take the great talent and abilities of the students who come here from all over the world and say that Scotland is open for business and that we want to be part of the global economic world.
When the Education and Culture Committee took evidence on this issue, most academics said that the academic world sees no boundaries. Academics work with each other all the time, which is very important for research. I was there when Professor Peter Boyle said:
“We strongly support Scotland retaining its position in a single research ecosystem ... We would like to see a single research system continue whether there is a yes vote for independence or not.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 25 March 2014; c 3981, 3892.]
That makes sense; that is being sensible. The excellence of our universities’ research will not become non-excellent overnight—to use an almost Bill and Ted reference. We will still retain the same level of excellence. No one will stop coming to our academics’ doors and asking them to be involved in research. That is obvious and simple.
I say this lightly, because I think that we can find a way to work together on this, but again we have just had more scare tactics and negativity. We are saying that independence will give us the opportunity to be part of the world, move things forward and take full control over this issue.
Will the member give way?
Yes, I will.
I thank the member for taking an intervention. There are no scare tactics—[Interruption.]
Order, please.
I am asking how the funding of academic research under a subscription system in an independent Scotland would exceed that of the research funding that there is under the current system.
Negotiations are negotiations, and things would be sorted out during the negotiation period. Negotiation was a quite important part of a position that I held in a former life, and I am pretty sure that things could be sorted out eventually.
Some members say that we are discriminating against UK students when we talk about objective justification, but that is complete nonsense. As certain members were told quite bluntly, the issue is about residency, not about discrimination.
Will the member take an intervention?
This should be fun.
Will George Adam confirm that the SNP policy, if it is not about discriminating on the grounds of nationality, is about discriminating on the grounds of residency?
An objective justification is exactly what the argument is. Mr Bibby makes a demolishment of his own argument when he talks about these things.
We have to look at the situation and we have to look at a mature way of taking this forward. The only way that I see that we can do that is by Scotland having independence and full control. I do not believe that the non-stop Labour-Tory situation down south will do any better for us.
15:57
The topic of immigration preoccupied most of the UK during the European elections. With the wall to wall media coverage of the UK Independence Party, we in Scotland have been subjected to a tirade of one-subject campaigning. All that completely distorts the reality here.
Only since 2003 has the number of people coming to Scotland consistently exceeded the number of those leaving, and it will take us quite a while to make up the deficit. Natural population growth has not helped to make up for the loss of people to emigration.
Interestingly, England’s position is diametrically opposed. Although we added an average of just 2,667 people a year during the past three decades, net migration into—mostly—England was 2.92 million in just one decade between 2001 and 2011.
We need people, especially young people, to come here and make a positive contribution to our culture, our economy and our communities. Without immigration we are going to find it hard, if not impossible, to sustain a workforce large enough to help to pay the pensions of those retiring. Some of us here may be a bit closer to retiring than others.
However, Westminster seems utterly determined to restrict the number of people coming to the UK in any way that it can. The UK has dumped tier 1 post-study work visas and replaced them with graduate entrepreneur visas, which have been capped at 1,000 students and made it increasingly difficult for non-EU citizens to work here.
Many of those students take courses in modern business methods, including MBA degrees, but rather than offering them an easy opportunity to start their careers in Scotland we are sending them straight back into the arms of our competitors abroad. It is a crazy policy that is driven by a perceived problem that does not even apply in Scotland.
Of course, as we know, immigration policy is reserved. If the Home Office wants to festoon Scottish buses or visa offices with advertisements telling people to go home, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. If any Westminster Government wants to take back or stop any policy it has implemented, it can do so at any time. That is the point of this whole debate: we can develop new and appropriately designed policies only with the leverage that comes with independence; without that independence, we cannot stop the Tory Westminster Government taking away the fresh talent initiative, capping student visas or anything else. This is yet another example—a big and crucial example—of how we are definitely not better together.
At an economic level, evidence in the Institute for Fiscal Studies report—it is in chapter 4—has established that a Scottish migration system could improve our fiscal balance by £1.6 billion a year. Just last month, the principal of the University of Glasgow—we have heard a lot about him today—criticised Westminster’s approach to migration legislation, saying that the universities’ links across the world were under threat. He pointed out that
“you begin to see how people have perceived what the UK has been doing in the immigration space so negatively”,
and he suggested that it was like putting up a sign saying “Closed for business” or “Closed for education—don’t come here”.
Those are strong and powerful words from the principal of the University of Glasgow, an institution with a centuries-long tradition of providing education. We know that in Scotland we punch well above our weight with regard to equality and the ambition of our further and higher education institutions. As for research grants, I must point out that they are based on merit, not geography. Can we just get rid of that red herring here and now?
Scotland has been an educational leader since the early part of the 15th century, and it is home to some of the world’s oldest and most prestigious universities as well as some of the finest specialist vocational and modern institutions. Highly educated working-age graduates who are likely to be keenly ambitious generate more taxes, and they will settle and have their children in this country and contribute greatly in many ways—not just financially—to it.
Each year, Scotland attracts more than 40,000 students from across the world. During their studies, they are net contributors to the economy—indeed, they contribute £779 million annually—but most are compelled to return home once they graduate because of a daft short-sighted policy that ensures that their brains do not get used. In an independent Scotland, we could create incentives to encourage these young people to establish themselves in Scotland. By having an international mix of identities, we would, as a nation, benefit not only economically but across the cultural and social spectrum.
Westminster is damaging our economy. Both Universities Scotland and the University and College Union Scotland have criticised its draconian approach to immigration and student visas. It makes no sense to train experienced, gifted graduates in Scotland only to force them to leave as soon as they have qualified.
I will finish on this point: the can’t-do attitude of the better together parties in the chamber today epitomises the very reason why we need independence. We need to be able to maintain Scotland’s can-do attitude.
16:03
Today’s debate on the impact of immigration policy on higher education in Scotland is very timely. In recent years, the UK Government’s approach to immigration policy has become illogical and damaging to different aspects of society, particularly our higher education sector. In a bid to appease the Tory rebels on their back benches and in the vain hope of scuttling the rise of UKIP in England, David Cameron and Theresa May have pursued a politically motivated immigration policy instead of one that is functional and addresses the needs of the UK’s constituent parts.
That policy has manifested itself in a desire to cut overall migrant numbers. Indeed, the ability to cut migrant numbers, regardless of the impact on business or education, is now the self-defined measure of success for the UK Government’s immigration policy. The UK Government knows that it cannot cut numbers from the EU to meet those targets, so it is imposing increasingly strict immigration criteria on non-EU citizens who wish to come here, including many of the students who would like to study at Scotland’s world-leading universities and colleges.
The decision to impose further restrictions on non-EU migrants as a perceived solution to EU migration epitomises the UK Government’s increasingly nonsensical and dysfunctional approach to immigration policy. As a result, the number of students coming from India to Scotland has fallen by 58 per cent, while the number of students moving from India to Australia has increased by 70 per cent. Other English-speaking countries such as the United States and Canada have also enjoyed healthy increases in international student numbers. Scotland is now lagging behind, with non-EU student numbers decreasing.
The impact of the UK Government’s policies has not gone unnoticed. Indeed, those policies have been doggedly pursued in spite of the criticism of industry specialists. In 2013, the High Court ruled that UK visa rules were “unjustified” and “disproportionate”, infringing on the rights of both British citizens and those wishing to come here.
In recent evidence to the European and External Relations Committee, Professor Wright of the University of Strathclyde called the current UK Government policies on international students “a disaster”, which made us “less competitive”.
The principal of the University of Glasgow, Professor Anton Muscatelli, is of a similar view, stating that UK Government immigration rules are damaging to the higher education sector in Scotland and that they create an international perception that students are not welcome here.
The UK Government bluntly reinforced that point with its high-profile “Go home” poster campaign, which was subsequently withdrawn after the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the campaign was predicated on misleading and inaccurate statistics.
Professor Muscatelli continued by saying that the message that we are “closed for education” is
“exactly the opposite message that a number of other countries are sending, including the US, Canada and Australia. I don’t think we should be there as a country.”
Ultimately, however, Scotland has no say over the matter.
Scotland attracts 40,000 students from 180 countries every year—students who contribute more than £779 million to the economy annually. The benefits of international students are not simply quantifiable in monetary terms. Foreign students develop an international outlook among our own home-grown students, and they enrich the learning experience for everyone in the education sector.
NUS Scotland’s evidence to the Education and Culture Committee succinctly stated the case by saying:
“immigration, including that for the purposes of study, provides huge benefits to Scotland and the UK, and should be wholly encouraged.”
It is difficult to understand why we should allow the benefits of migration to be threatened by the politically motivated immigration policy being imposed by Westminster. Scotland can, should and must choose a different path, and a yes vote in September will ensure that we have a sensible, measured and proportionate immigration policy, as outlined in the Scottish Government’s white paper on independence.
Studies undertaken by the migration observatory at the University of Oxford found that a majority of people would prefer immigration decisions to be taken by Holyrood, rather than at Westminster. The study also found that there was public sympathy for the Scottish Government’s position of encouraging international students to study here.
One measure that we could immediately reintroduce with independence is the post-study work visa. The UK Government made a short-sighted decision in withdrawing the scheme, which allowed many highly skilled and educated migrants to remain in Scotland. It makes little sense to train graduates only then to tell them to leave the country. I am delighted that there seems to be universal agreement in the Parliament that we should introduce a post-study visa. The problem with the Opposition’s argument is that what the UK Government giveth the UK Government then taketh away. Although there is universal agreement here, we can do nothing while the powers rest with Westminster.
The reintroduction of the post-study work visa will help to attract international students to our universities and colleges and to deliver the economic prosperity that could be achieved with independence. Independence will also give us the full range of powers to incentivise innovation and to encourage research investment in our universities. It will allow our higher education sector to compete effectively for the best international students and to create a country that is welcoming and open to international researchers.
It is clear that there is little hope of reform while Scotland is part of the UK. Our colleges and universities can only watch powerlessly as events in the south of England negatively impact upon the future prospects of the education sector in Scotland. Scotland would be better served by an immigration policy that was tailored to suit Scotland’s specific circumstances, rather than following the one-size-fits-all approach taken by Westminster. Scotland’s needs are different from those of the south of England, and independence will allow us to create an immigration system that is fair and proportionate, and which works in conjunction with the higher education system, rather than against it.
It is important for international students to know that Scotland is open for business, that they are a welcome addition to our society and that the negative and damaging voice of Westminster does not reflect the views that are commonly held here in Scotland.
16:09
It is an honour to speak about the impact of immigration policy on higher education in Scotland. Historically, Scotland is known for producing skilful and original individuals. Furthermore, Scotland is rightfully proud of its excellent education system, and our universities are among the best in the world.
Over the past decade, Scottish universities have experienced an increase in the number of Scottish, European Union and international students. Current figures indicate that Scotland has a higher share of students from countries outside the UK attending a form of higher education than the UK as a whole has. That speaks volumes for our education system, and it gives me an opportunity to thank all the teachers, lecturers and professors in Scotland for their dedication and the hard work that they do for our students and students from overseas.
However, the basic fact is that undergraduate degrees take a year longer in Scotland than they do in England and Wales, and no one can tell me that having to pay an additional year’s worth of fees and living costs to study in Scotland has no influence on the decision that students make about whether to study here.
Another point to bear in mind is the fact that the excellent international reputation of the British higher education system as a whole benefits us. A survey that was carried out by Chinese students among 200 overseas students at four Scottish universities found that 46 per cent of the non-EU nationals who were surveyed said that they would be less likely to choose a university in an independent Scotland because they wanted to get a British degree. That surprised me. More than a third of them feared that a Scottish degree would not be considered to be as valuable as a British degree. I suppose that that needs to be put to the test; nevertheless, there is a perception that a British degree would be more valuable.
Many students automatically begin their search for a course by contacting the British Council or a British embassy. They look through all the courses that are provided by British universities and apply for one that meets their needs. At present, Scottish higher education institutions can identify themselves as being part of that British system, but if Scotland leaves the UK, it will no longer have the benefit of the extensive network of embassies and British Council offices in 170 countries around the world.
Although the member makes many very good points, I struggle to understand some of his most recent arguments. If it is the case that only a British degree holds attractions—
That is not what Mr Malik said.
If it is the case that it is primarily a British degree that holds attractions, why are Canadian universities having so little difficulty in attracting students from India and other countries? Is Mr Malik making the case that Canada should not have taken the decisions that it took about self-determination?
The minister will appreciate that Canada had an option to separate and it did not.
There is absolutely no doubt that having such a large number of outlets gives us an advantage.
I agree with what Humza Yousaf said about the difficulties with immigration issues, but the Scottish Government cut the marketing budget for India and Pakistan, which did not help because, at the end of the day, it is all about marketing. We cannot pretend that marketing does not have an effect: it does, and it would be unfair and unjust to suggest that it does not.
We would like the Scottish Government to do its duty by paying Scottish colleges and universities more money so that our own students can find places. Humza Yousaf and I have constituents who have received letters from colleges to say that they are 600th in the queue for a place. I wonder how old they will be when they eventually get a place. The Government says that there is free education, but I do not believe that it is free education if people cannot get into a college.
The same applies to universities. There are students who have all the entry qualifications but who have been denied a place because the Scottish Government will not pay the fee for them—another promise made but not kept by the Scottish Government.
We need to look at ourselves and see whether we are being honest with ourselves and not disingenuous with students. I am sure that many students who did not get places this year will think twice about independence, because they know that the Government has not delivered on its promise of free education.
Please draw to a close.
I am keen for the Scottish Government to deliver on the promises that it has made rather than look around for people to blame and people to use as a political tool to sell the idea of independence, because what is said just is not true.
16:15
I will remind the Parliament of how successful, unique and important Scotland’s education system is to the collective intellectual and international knowledge economy.
In October last year, the British Council published a detailed and comprehensive assessment of Scotland’s higher education system and its distinctive and defining strengths, which was authored by Neil Kemp and William Lawton. The report found that the overall learning satisfaction of international students in Scotland is unmatched worldwide, which reflects the Scottish ethos of higher education as a public good. The Scottish system is world class and is rated highly not only against the rest of the UK but against international comparators.
The report picked out defining characteristics that are unique to Scotland, such as the
“primacy of the learner and a stress on life-long learning; an integrated and inclusive sector that is internationally active; a no-fees policy for”
Scottish and EU
“undergraduates; high employability rates for graduates; strong links with business and industry; an innovative system of research pooling and research investment; high levels of research impact including”
many
“spinoff companies; success in winning research income”
and the
“strong recruitment of international students”.
When the report was published, Lloyd Anderson of the British Council Scotland said:
“This report tells a remarkable story of a national academic system that is world class and highly innovative, a story of which Scotland should be very proud. The nation’s assets include a higher than expected number of world-class universities, as rated by both academic indicators and the students themselves, and a uniquely joined-up, collaborative and inclusive sector.”
Professor Nigel Seaton, who is vice-convener of Universities Scotland’s international committee and principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Abertay Dundee, said:
“This report confirms the distinctive strengths that put Scottish higher education on the world stage, especially its emphasis on our integrated approach to lifelong learning as supported by the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.”
Section 3.11 of the report, which is about non-EU international students, highlights some of Scotland’s successes, particularly enrolments from the US and Canada. It says that another success has been an increase in enrolments from China and India, although the Indian rate has fallen recently and
“Recent indications are that Indian enrolments have been adversely hit by changes to UK immigration policies.”
On 22 June 2005, the fresh talent initiative was launched. A year earlier, Jack McConnell had said:
“I laid down a challenge to Scotland—the challenge of growth. I set out the economic and social case for increasing Scotland’s population through promoting ourselves within the UK’s policy of managed migration.
This policy statement describes how Scotland’s devolved government will begin to reverse the population decline that threatens our future prosperity, through a modern scheme of managed migration.”
Earlier today, Jamie McGrigor asked a question in the chamber about the demographic challenges in Argyll and Bute and a decrease in population there. Those problems are well known and well understood in Scotland, and if ever there was an argument for why we need constitutional change, it is that very one. We had a policy that represented the needs of Scotland. We negotiated it, it was delivered, and it worked for Scotland. Nothing in our challenges has changed; what has changed is that, on the whim of a Westminster Government with political pressures that are not relevant in Scotland, the fresh talent initiative was taken away and cancelled.
There has been quite a bit of discussion about objective justification in the white paper, but very little discussion about why that objective justification is there. We must remind ourselves that it is there because of the obscenity of charging students south of the border up to £9,000 a year for their education. We do not agree with that approach in Scotland and we do not want to have to introduce it. We have been forced into things because of the poor decisions on charging for education elsewhere in the UK.
Will the member give way?
No, thank you.
The future is not about the status quo versus what is in the white paper, because the likely outcome of the political changes that we are seeing as a result of last week’s election is that the relationship with the EU will be renegotiated and voted on. We have no clearer idea about how the rest of the UK and its relationship with the EU will go forward. I am therefore less worried about the matter than the Opposition members seem to be.
I have many quotes on the issue from submissions and evidence, including from Colleges Scotland, and I am very sorry that I will not be able to quote them all. However, Professor Wright from the department of economics at the University of Strathclyde said:
“Our competitors for foreign students are English-speaking countries, of which there are not that many—say, five or six. The issue is critical for Scotland, because the higher education sector here is huge, compared with the sector in England and many other countries. It is a very important part of the economy.”—[Official Report, European and External Relations Committee, 15 May 2014; c 2037.]
He went on to say that he is losing students to Canada because they cannot work in the visa system that the UK Government has set.
16:22
Like countless others, I bought a Sunday paper last Sunday. It contained an interesting insert from a group called Better Together, which contained the following comment:
“With more universities in the world’s top 200 per head of population than any other country on the planet Scotland’s universities are thriving as part of the UK.”
I can at least agree that Scotland’s universities are thriving, and it is, of course, absolutely true that they are a vital part of Scotland’s economy. Indeed, even the Scottish Affairs Select Committee acknowledged that the excellence of Scotland’s higher education institutes meant that they attracted a disproportionate share of UK research funding. As others have said, they attract just under 30,000 international students, not including from the EU, and 12 per cent of all students are from overseas, not including the EU.
Scotland has five of the top 200 universities in the world, including the University of St Andrews, of course, in which 2,625 students—or 33 per cent of the total—are from overseas. Those universities are global institutions. However, as Alastair Sim of Universities Scotland has said, the UK offer to overseas students is not as attractive when it is compared with the offer from competitors in Canada, the USA and Australia. The absence of post-study work visas, the inability to be accompanied by family members and other issues play their part in a student’s consideration of the options. We know of the increasing difficulties of students from India and Pakistan in getting visas at all, cap or no cap. Our loss is Australia’s gain, of course. Easier requirements to meet in Australia have caused a dramatic increase in the numbers of students from India and Pakistan, albeit that they started from a low base.
The question is: will independence help? Jack McConnell’s comment that
“We need to grow the population to grow the labour force to grow the economy”
was not made specifically in connection with independence, but the reality is that the UK’s current immigration policy impedes entry into Scotland. Even that august unionist body, the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, grudgingly acknowledged that independence
“may provide scope for marginal changes, which might be beneficial to the recruitment of foreign students”.
Stewart Maxwell has already referred to the fact that it was absolutely clear from Professor Robert Wright’s evidence at the Parliament’s European and External Relations Committee that the current UK system “is a disaster”. He said:
“With the removal of the fresh talent initiative, foreign students have to leave six months after they graduate and have to be monitored on a monthly basis. That is making us less competitive, because our chief competitors do not do that.”
He also said:
“I do not understand why, from a rational economics point of view, the UK has the system that it has, and why Scotland is forced to follow it.”—[Official Report, European and External Relations Committee, 15 May 2014; c 2037-38.]
I agree. Above all else, it looks like a political, rather than an economic, decision. The UK Government could change its policy, but, given the results of last Thursday’s vote, that perhaps looks less likely. However, even without independence, Professor Wright believes that the Canadian experience, particularly the Canadian-Quebec accord, suggests that responsibility for immigration could be devolved. If our political opponents really believe in the best of both worlds, perhaps they should consider that.
Chinese students are the most mobile on the planet. They account for 16 per cent of all international students and number more than 500,000 in total. They are substantial consumers of higher education. Professor Downes told the Parliament’s Education and Culture Committee that China
“is not a country that is subject to intensive scrutiny by the immigration people at Westminster.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 25 March 2014; c 3858.]
Liam McArthur referred to the ChinaGirlsAbroad survey, and I agree with others that its conclusions are disappointing. However, at the end of the day, I think that some of those concerns might be misplaced. I will quote some of the opinions that are contained in the report. One student says:
“After independence, the spending on education might be reduced”.
Another student says:
“Wouldn’t have opportunities to explore the rest part of UK.”
Another student says:
“UK is a comparatively developed and well organized country (in education), but if Scotland became independent, it would face many issues, such as currency, diplomacy, and defence, etc.”
In those comments, we can perhaps hear echoes of George Osborne.
The conclusion of the report contains perhaps the most telling comment of all. It says:
“In a sense, the views of the students expressed here and the divisions between them over the future status of Scotland, parallel the arguments in Scottish society as a whole.”
I could not agree more. However, I think that the truth of the matter is that a world-class institution will remain a world-class institution, wherever in the world it is located. What is absolutely true is that we have to ensure that, as a society, we are open and welcoming to students. It is noteworthy that the NUS survey found that 50 per cent of international students feel unwelcome in the UK, and that nearly 20 per cent would not recommend the UK to a friend or relative as a place to study. Those are the issues that we need to tackle.
I accept that universities exist in a competitive market. Under any constitutional arrangement, universities will need to market themselves, and I am convinced that Scotland’s universities are up to that challenge.
In the time remaining, I would like to say a few words in general about migration. Population growth in Scotland and the rest of the UK has been anything but equal, historically. As Tom Devine has noted, between 1841 and 1911, 600,000 Scots moved south, without a similar move in the opposite direction. Today, of course, there is a move from south to north, as well as substantial migration from Scotland to the south, such that roughly 700,000 Scotland-born folk live elsewhere in the UK. When we talk about increasing the working population, we should consider that it is just possible that some of those people might want to return to a Scotland that is at least intent on creating the conditions for a thriving, growing economy and which is keen to attract students and skilled workers from across the world.
It is perhaps telling that the people who are talking about border controls are Theresa May and other right-wing Conservatives, such as the absent Alex Johnstone. Whatever else it might be, their message is not one of hope and aspiration.
16:28
This has been an intriguing debate. There has been a large amount of consensus and—perhaps inevitably, in the run-up to September—the now all-too-customary areas of difference.
There is unanimity across the chamber about the contribution that international students make to our universities, economically, culturally and socially. That was reflected in everyone’s speeches. George Adam gave a perfect illustration of that when he spoke about the impact of international students in his Paisley constituency, and Jim Eadie, who also pointed to the impact of the two universities in his constituency, was right to remind us of the contribution that universities make in terms of attracting inward investment.
A point that was perhaps not made as strongly as it should have been in this context is the contribution that international students make to the soft power that Scotland and the UK exert through graduates from our universities.
Members were unanimous, too, in acknowledging and, I think, accepting the concerns that people in our university sector have expressed very forcefully.
Liz Smith was right to set out some of the background to the changes in the visa regime. That was helpful, and I think that Neil Bibby accepted what she said, but an acknowledgement of the issues was notably absent from most of the speeches of members of the Government party. It was helpful to hear about the context, in relation to not just why we are here but the issues that we need to resolve in determining how we get to where we need to be and ensure that our universities are competitive.
I think that members throughout the Parliament accepted that change is needed in not just the policy but the rhetoric around immigration. Perhaps it was predictable, ahead of September, that the consensus broke down on how we resolve the issue. I simply do not accept that independence is a panacea that can be rolled out when we are confronted by any problem, which will somehow and miraculously change everything that we want to change while leaving untouched all the aspects that we want to retain.
I am thankful that the debate on immigration is—or has been—different in Scotland from how it has been in other parts of the country. I listened with interest to what Roderick Campbell said about migration within the UK, and I make the point that there is migration within Scotland that has nothing to do with immigration policy but reflects the trouble that all Governments have in retaining population in more remote areas. Jamie McGrigor raised the issue in a parliamentary question earlier today, as Clare Adamson said.
We should not delude ourselves into assuming that the debate on immigration in Scotland would remain the same if the Scottish ministers became responsible for immigration policy. The minister talked about support in the polls, but social attitudes surveys and recent polling suggest that public views on immigration north and south of the border vary very little. The Herald revealed only last week that seven out of 10 Scots back stricter immigration controls. That cannot simply be glossed over in an attempt to argue that we are, by instinct, entirely different from people who live elsewhere in these islands. That is not an argument for pandering to anti-immigration attitudes—quite the reverse—but it should be an argument for urging caution in the assumptions that we are being asked to make by the SNP.
The tone of the debate around immigration needs to improve. In light of what happened last week, not just here but across the continent, it is all the more important that politicians north and south of the border convey the message that we are open, tolerant and welcoming.
Policy, too, needs to reflect our aspirations. I underscore my view that, although there is no cap on international students, the figures should be set apart from the overall net migration figure. We need to increase opportunities for the best and brightest international students to stay on after completing their studies. Improvements have been made, but there is a strong case for going further, not least to reflect the competition that our universities face from counterparts in the US, Canada and Australia, in particular, which members mentioned.
The argument that breaking up the UK is the best way of making our universities more attractive to international students simply does not bear scrutiny. As Neil Bibby said, and as leading academics have made clear, there is a threat to the research funding that our universities currently attract. Last week, 14 professors, from all five of Scotland’s medical schools, expressed “grave concerns” about Scotland’s research community being
“denied its present ability to win proportionately more grant funding than the country contributes to a common research pool.”
The academics went on to say:
“We regard creation of a post-independence common research area as an undertaking fraught with difficulty and one that is unlikely to come to fruition.”
The member knows what I am going to say. He will be aware that 102 academics wrote to the press shortly after that to say that they think that independence holds out the best prospects for research funding in Scotland.
We can say, “Your academics say this and our academics say that”, but we cannot ignore the fact that the creation of a common research area would be subject to negotiation, as George Adam readily acknowledged. Simply to assert that the current position will remain the case going forward is not at all convincing. It is difficult to see how the situation would increase the attractiveness of our universities to international students.
Will the member give way?
I am afraid that I am in my final minute; I am sorry.
Reduced access to the UK network of embassies, consuls and inward investment support also seems to work against the objectives that we are all seeking to make our universities more competitive internationally. I do not doubt that a scaled-back Scottish diplomatic operation would target key markets, but it would inevitably be more stretched and create increased numbers of blind spots. Meanwhile, the claims that the nationalists could go on charging fees to students from the rest of the UK in the event of a yes vote are believed by no one but themselves. Academic experts and the Commission have explained how that would be discriminatory and illegal under EU law.
In the event that the education secretary is wrong, Scottish ministers will need to find an extra £150 million or more to cover the costs of lost fee income. Added to that, as Roderick Campbell has said, a survey of international students at four Scottish universities revealed recently that nearly half of non-EU students said that they would be less likely to come here if Scotland was an independent country. As one student put it, the UK is a powerful brand.
Our international students enrich our universities while making a significant contribution to our economy. Universities Scotland is right to seek our support in ensuring that this vital sector remains competitive and attractive, and once we are beyond September, I hope that we will be able to use that consensus to secure that objective.
16:35
I acknowledge the content of the speeches from Liam McArthur and Liz Smith; I also acknowledge their tone, which was very fitting in such a debate. They were not the only ones, but it is important that this debate has been conducted in such a manner.
I also acknowledge the agreement that we have seen from across the chamber. We might have our differences in the lead-up to 18 September, but we all agree on the contribution to Scotland of EU and international students. My daughter went to Leiden for a year as part of the Erasmus scheme to study for her degree, and I know how much she benefited from that and from meeting other students.
Like my colleague Liz Smith, I welcome the chance to debate immigration policy today. Although I completely understand why Universities Scotland and individual principals such as Anton Muscatelli, who has had many mentions today, have raised concerns about the UK Government’s immigration policy, as the Conservative amendment makes clear, and as Liz Smith did very well to set out, it is vital to place the debate in context.
Specifically, the previous student visa system had to be looked at. I can do no better than to quote the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the former Labour minister Margaret Hodge, who concluded that the 2009 changes were
“poorly planned and ill-thought out”
and that they were implemented
“before proper controls were in place”.
The result was that an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 additional migrants came to the UK to work rather than to study. A “Newsnight” investigation, as well as that of “Panorama” of course, was able to obtain two bogus visa documents for £350.
Since being elected, the UK coalition Government has sought to address the situation. The measures that it has taken are too numerous to mention, so I will mention just two or three. All institutions that want to sponsor students now have to be classed as “highly trusted” and be accredited by statutory education inspection bodies, and rightly so. We owe it to the students who come here. There has been a shift away from paper visa applications, which were being abused, towards online, print-and-send application forms. Credibility interviews have been established that also assess those who apply to study in the UK.
I appreciate that there were no bogus colleges in Scotland, but they undoubtedly existed elsewhere in these islands. Given the huge problems with the old system, the changes were necessary. No one could argue that they were not, and I thank Neil Bibby for acknowledging that in his opening remarks.
The vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia said that the UK Government
“listened to our concerns about pathway courses into universities and the need for the language requirement to be set at a realistic level that will not deter good students”.
Accordingly, for an immigration system to function properly, it must welcome those who are willing to contribute to society while acting against those who seek to exploit the system.
As Liam McArthur said, a recent poll identified that seven out of 10 Scots believe that stricter controls on immigration are necessary. Whatever we think about such opinions, we cannot simply wish them away.
Leaving aside all the uncertainties that surround the SNP’s own immigration proposals, the facts state that since the UK Government came to power, the number of first-year enrolments from non-EU countries to Scottish universities has increased year on year, as Kezia Dugdale said. We all thoroughly welcome the contribution of the students who have come here to study.
Although there has been a drop in the number of Indian students coming to Scotland, the numbers from China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries continue to rise year on year. If we want to talk about India, let us do so in context.
Like others, I believe that international students make a huge contribution to Scottish life, educationally, economically and of course culturally. I sympathise with and acknowledge the concerns voiced by Universities Scotland and Professor Pete Downes, who recently appeared before the Education and Culture Committee. As I have said, we want to welcome students, but we do not want people coming in with bogus visas, which is detrimental to those who want to come here to contribute to Scottish life. We want to discourage those who exploit and abuse the system. The UK Government had to tackle the student visa system, which was coming in for abuse, and those measures must be set in context.
The discrimination—and it is discrimination—against English students that would happen if we went forward to an independent Scotland is unacceptable. In the context of any attempt to maintain good relations with our nearest neighbours, that has to the worst possible policy. Clare Adamson stands on the moral high ground and talks about how she opposes £9,000 tuition fees, but she is very happy to take the £9,000 tuition fees from those who are coming from England. If she is opposed to £9,000 tuition fees, why is she so happy to charge English students that amount if an independent Scotland were to come?
16:42
I will be the third person to welcome the tone of the debate. If only the media had taken the same approach, we might have had a different election result last week. Liz Smith was the first to introduce the European election results; Liam McArthur mentioned them in his closing speech, too. We should all unite against UKIP and we should stand up and take it on. The solutions that UKIP puts forward do not stack up when we look at the challenges that the UK faces. I believe UKIP to be a regressive, reactionary and racist force in UK politics. I take some comfort from the fact that the UKIP vote was just 7.7 per cent in Edinburgh, but it was as high as 13.6 per cent in other parts of the country. We have a duty to unite and defeat those arguments and that party with the power of our arguments and the will of our work.
I was pleased that Humza Yousaf mentioned the role of the National Union of Students and the approach that it takes to welcoming international students to our shores. It does not just welcome them; it gives them an active role in the democratic systems that we have in place for student participation in so many of our universities. The NUS leads much of the work around promoting a positive place for international students on our campuses. However, the minister did say that he would come back to the issue of colleges and I do not feel that he did that, so perhaps he will return to it in his closing speech.
The minister was also very gracious to mention the fresh talent initiative. I pay tribute to Jack McConnell’s leadership on that initiative. Jack McConnell’s most successful policy is often viewed as the smoking ban but, when we look behind the scenes, we could argue that the fresh talent initiative was one of the most innovative and progressive things that he did in the sense that it was a long-term policy that displayed a great deal of foresight about the population challenges that we face as a country and addressed them head on, much against the will of quite a right-wing press. We should unite in recognising that.
At the heart of Jack McConnell’s fresh talent initiative was the fundamental acceptance and belief that we could have UK-wide border controls with the flexibility within that system to reflect local and national circumstances. Fresh talent was combined with the wider programme of promoting Scotland overseas. The slogan was
“Now is the time, Scotland is the place”.
Behind that bold slogan, though, was a serious policy and a mechanism to deliver it.
Although we have heard much about the fresh talent initiative, we have not heard much about the relocation advisory service, which underpinned much of the fresh talent work. The service was introduced in 2004, at the same time as the fresh talent initiative, and was funded by the Scottish Government as part of the initiative. The Scottish Government continued to fund the service when fresh talent was absorbed into the UK Labour Government’s plans around tier 1 post-study visa schemes. The Scottish Government continued to support the service because it offered a one-stop-shop information advisory service for people looking to study, live and work in Scotland.
The relocation advisory service also worked with employers to provide advice and assistance when companies were looking to recruit staff from overseas. People could do that using the website www.scotlandistheplace.com. That website is no longer operational. In 2012, the Scottish Government restructured, and the relocation advisory service was subsumed into TalentScotland, a Scottish Enterprise initiative. On the TalentScotland website there is nothing like the same degree of work, information and services that the relocation advisory service offered. It is important that we recognise that.
There was also the one Scotland, many cultures campaign, which ran from 2002 to 2008-09. Earlier today, I asked SPICe to tell me whether there were any equivalent schemes now. It told me that there is no current anti-racism media campaign in Scotland but that marketing activity on equality issues is planned for later this year.
It is important to recognise those two factors because, as much as I agree with a lot of what Humza Yousaf has said today, if he is going to apportion blame, he has to look at his own record on the issue. The one Scotland, many cultures campaign and the relocation advisory service have disappeared. He would be in a stronger position today if he had maintained those services.
We have heard a lot about statistics today. I heard Stewart Maxwell say that the number of non-EU students studying in Scotland was decreasing. I am afraid that that is incorrect. I have the tables from the Higher Education Statistics Agency here, which show that the number of non-EU students studying in Scotland has increased every year from 2008 to the present day. In fact, in the past year it has increased by 11 per cent, which is double the UK-wide figure of 5 per cent. Stewart Maxwell is shaking his head—I would be happy to provide the HESA tables to him after the debate.
We agree with the minister that the current Tory-Lib Dem Government immigration policy poses a significant threat to our universities. The weight of concern from the universities sector is considerable. The minister will have more success in uniting the chamber if he does not overegg it, but I am afraid that his use of statistics today suggests that he might be doing that.
Although I have proved to the minister that the number of international students in higher education is increasing, the number in colleges is decreasing. In fact, it is half what it was when the minister’s party came into power in 2007. In 2008-09, Motherwell College had a progressive approach to attracting international students. It had one dedicated member of staff in China, specifically to attract Chinese students to study at the college. We are calling on the Government today to consider more of that type of work.
There are other issues behind the statistics, because we do not know the full impact of what they tell us. We do not know what percentage of international students remain in Scotland after they complete their studies or how many want to stay and draw on policies such as the post-study work visa programme. We do not know how many people want to stay long term and become resident in Scotland. We would be in a much better place if we had that information today.
We have talked a lot about countries from which the number of students coming to Scotland has fallen. India has been mentioned several times, and Jim Eadie mentioned the impact that that drop in numbers is having on the University of Edinburgh. I asked SPICe about that particular trend today and was told that a contributing factor to a reduction in the number of Indian students coming to study in Scotland is a massive and rapid expansion in the Indian higher education sector. Fewer Indian students are coming to Scotland because the university sector is growing there and Indian students are choosing to stay and study in India. I am not going to suggest that that is the whole reason for the reduction in numbers, but it is worth putting the situation into context.
I add that the number of students coming from China is going up, while the number coming from the USA and Canada is staying broadly the same.
My colleague Neil Bibby was absolutely right to introduce the rest-of-the-UK fees issue into the debate. I encourage all SNP members to look at the SPICe briefing, which shows that the white paper proposal is not legal. It is very clear that that is the case, and I refer them to the fourth point in that briefing, which says quite clearly—
Will the member take an intervention?
The member is in her last minute.
I am sorry to hear that; I would have very much welcomed the opportunity to hear from Jim Eadie on that point. However, I encourage him to look at the SPICe briefing.
Neil Bibby was also correct to raise research council grants. I point Christina McKelvie to some of the facts. She suggested that grants were allocated on merit, not geography. UK research councils fund UK institutions. If we are not part of the United Kingdom, we will not have access to those funds—it really is that simple.
We cannot accept the SNP’s position because it implies that only independence would deliver a more progressive immigration policy. That is demonstrably not the case, as Jack McConnell proved. We cannot support the Tory or the Lib Dem amendments because we cannot endorse the UK Government’s immigration policy.
We will find that out at decision time.
16:51
I share the sentiments that have been expressed by members across the chamber. There have been disagreements, but the tone of the debate has been fairly good. We all agree that we value the contribution of international students and that they enrich our experience not just economically, as important as that is, but holistically through their culture, socially and in many other ways.
I will try to address as many of members’ remarks as I can in my closing speech. Before coming here, I read Colleges Scotland’s briefing, which of course mentions the UK Government’s policies. In particular, it wants to discuss attaining the “highly trusted” status; at the moment, it can apply for that only in the 12-month transitional period. Discussions on that with the Scottish Government are on-going and I am happy to update any member, particularly Kezia Dugdale, who asked a question on that very issue.
I enjoyed Mr Malik’s speech, but he said that there are waiting lists. There are no waiting lists at all for colleges. In fact, he attended a meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Mike Russell, and his officials. [Humza Yousaf has corrected this contribution. See end of report.] At that meeting, he was asked to provide evidence on the existence of waiting lists. To this day, he has not provided any written evidence.
I make it absolutely clear that I have not been asked to produce any evidence. However, now that I have been asked, I am happy to provide it. I want the minister to guarantee that he will make places available to those students who are waiting, once he has the evidence.
As I said, there are no waiting lists. I am happy for Mr Malik to provide that evidence, which was asked for before, but the fact that people can apply to up to 10 colleges does not mean that they are on the waiting list for all those 10 colleges.
Liz Smith’s speech was very good; it was interesting and measured. However, her speech did not quite match the tone of her amendment. Most of her speech was about the numbers of bogus students and context setting. However, her colleague Mary Scanlon made the important point that there were no bogus colleges here in Scotland, so why are we affected by the Conservatives’ decisions to remove the post-study work visa?
The context of the immigration policy for the whole of the UK, Scotland included, is that there was a threat of bogus visas. That is not acceptable, because it damages the colleges and the universities.
I accept the point that bogus colleges are unacceptable and that they damage our education sector. However, Mary Scanlon’s point was that we did not have that problem in Scotland. The UK Government’s approach is very much a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Liz Smith mentioned that she had written to David Willetts and Theresa May, but even by her own admission, those calls fell on deaf ears. I appreciate her efforts, but if the UK Government will not listen to members of its own party, what chance do we have? Why not take that power in our own hands?
The problem with the entire debate—particularly with reference to the post-study work visa, but immigration in general—was highlighted and articulated well by Stewart Maxwell. The current UK Government and, I suggest, successive UK Governments have measured success in the immigration system in arbitrary caps—tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands—but that is not the measure of whether an immigration system is good or not good, effective or not effective. The measure must be whether it contributes to our goal of sustainable economic development.
All members agreed that we should reintroduce the post-study work visa. The SNP’s point is that the Parliament should be given the power to do exactly what all of us wish to do.
I will touch on some of the points that Opposition members made. Neil Bibby said that we have the lowest levels of support for students. That is simply incorrect. I ask him to look at what NUS Scotland said when it described our package of support as
“the best support package in the whole of the UK”
in 2012.
Neil Bibby also attacked us for not widening access when 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas are 40 per cent more likely to access university under the SNP than they previously were. He talks about access, but the fact that he was one of those who did not vote for the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013, which mandated statutory widening of access, really shows some audacity.
Neil Bibby, Liam McArthur and other Opposition members mentioned research pools. Liam McArthur said that there was no international precedent for a research collaboration. Let me tell him that, on 8 November 2013, three days before the UK Government’s paper on research was published, two UK research councils signed an agreement with the Swiss National Science Foundation. Paragraph 7 of that agreement says:
“the parties agree to reciprocally open their national research project funding schemes to collaborative proposals involving researchers from the other country.”
I rather suspect that the example that the minister cites involves collaborative research funding in which the bodies get back what they put into the pool. Professor Boyle told the committee that there was no precedent for international collaborative cross-border research on the scale that would need to exist for us to retain the benefits that we get from the UK research councils.
We are not asking for any more money. The Scottish Government has made it clear that we will pay our way and, if Liam McArthur does not believe the Scottish Government, he should believe Professor Tim O’Shea, principal of the University of Edinburgh:
“there is no reason why any form of constitutional change should preclude participation in higher order research councils.”
The quality of our research will determine whether it is funded, as I am sure it will be.
The need to charge students from the rest of the UK comes from the UK Government’s terrible decision to charge up to £27,000 for education. It is unbelievable that we should take lecture after lecture on that from the Labour front bench. That party promised in 1997 not to introduce tuition fees then did and, in 2001, promised not to introduce top-up fees and then did. It also promised never to reintroduce tuition fees, promised that they would be abolished and then voted against abolition. Now, of course, Johann Lamont says that everything, including student fees, is on the table. Labour members have so much brass neck that I am surprised that they can even turn their heads.
The point that I made at the beginning and on which I will end is that it is incumbent on us as politicians and political leaders to challenge attitudes. For the past year and a half, those in Westminster have disgracefully danced to the UKIP tune on immigration. Although some parties have done it more, I say to Kezia Dugdale that her own party’s MP, Diane Abbott, has warned her leader not to be
“a milk-and-water Farage”.
The Labour MP said that the party leader, Ed Miliband, risks alienating ethnic minority communities in the chase for the anti-immigration vote.
My point is that it is not possible to out-UKIP UKIP. That is why UKIP romped home in England but came in fourth in Scotland, where the Scottish Government has consistently challenged it.
Will the minister give way?
No, I will not. I am just about to finish up.
I am the proud son of immigrants, but equally I am very proud of this Government when it comes to immigration because it does not pander or conform to but challenges the right-wing narrative of xenophobia surrounding immigration. Only through independence will we have the powers to create a fairer controlled immigration system that will meet Scotland’s educational, social and cultural needs. I hope that Scotland will see the day when we have the power to reintroduce the post-study work visa and entice the best students from across the world to Scotland. We will all be enriched indeed by that.