Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
INDO BRITISH
PARTNERSHIP NETWORK
28 FEBRUARY 2006
Q280 Mr Wright: I am genuinely surprised
really at the low level of trade with India that we have in the
UK, representing just 1% of the total trade. We have been told
anecdotally that one of the reasons for this low level of trade
with India is that, unlike the Indian Chambers of Commerce, the
UK Chambers of Commerce do not have any dedicated offices in India.
Do you think that this is true and, if so, do you also consider
that this is a hindrance to increased trade?
Mr Bilimoria: I spoke earlier
of the fact that really it would help to have a mirror of the
Indo British Partnership Network set up in India, and I think
that is something we are trying to encourage to take place. It
would help; for example, the CBI have opened up an office in China,
I think it would be good if they opened up an office in India.
I believe the Lord Mayor, on his visit to India, is going to announce
the City of London opening up an office in India. I think that
is excellent news. In terms of the actual Chamber of Commerce
model, UKTI fulfils a lot of the roles of a Chamber of Commerce
already.
Q281 Mr Wright: Do you have discussions
with the Chambers of Commerce within the UK?
Mr Bilimoria: Yes. I have had
a meeting with the Indian High Commissioner and the Head of the
British Chambers of Commerce to see how we can take things even
further with the Indo British Partnership Network and the British
Chambers of Commerce.
Q282 Mr Wright: Have there been any
outward missions from the UK with the Chambers, just from the
regions rather than from the centre; you mentioned the Lord Mayor
going from London?
Mr Bilimoria: Yes. The London
Chamber of Commerce has sent delegations to India and passes delegations
to India, for example.
Q283 Mr Wright: What about the regions'
Chambers; we are talking about the financial institutions, as
far as those based in London are concerned, and that seems to
be the centre, but there are other Chambers, regionally, around
the UK, which probably could benefit from some of this expertise?
Mr Bilimoria: The regions are
sending delegations. For example, one of our Board members, Sandra
Brusby, from the North West, took an all-women business delegation
to India recently from the North West, so there are delegations
going regularly.
Dr Vyakarnam: I am sure I ran
into somebody from a Chamber of Commerce in the West Midlands
at the Auto Exhibition in Delhi, during our visit, and he had
actually used his own credit card to fund some of his members
to go and was hopeful that one day it would come back to him.
Q284 Mr Wright: Really it would be
true to say that you are actively supporting and encouraging Chambers
of Commerce and other industries to go over there, through the
UK?
Mr Bilimoria: Yes, very much so.
However, I feel that a lot more resource needs to be put in, both
here and in India, to encourage the bilateral trade, business
and investment, far, far more. I have expressed to you the small
budget that we have and what we are achieving with such a tiny
budget, but much, much more needs to be done. I gave the example
of UKTI in our particular area, their resources have been cut
from 36 people to six people in the South Asia Department, while
India is booming, and I think this needs to be addressed. The
private sector, once it is given a chance, we get on with it,
and we can help as much as we can, but I think the Government
also can do a great deal to support this bilateral trade, business
and investment.
Chairman: I want to change direction
a little bit now, in our questioning, to what is a very important
area, particularly in response to some of the comments you made
earlier, Dr Vyakarnam.
Q285 Roger Berry: You mentioned the
attractiveness of US academic institutions to students from India
and then the subsequent benefits in terms of economic links, trade
and investment, and so on. I suppose the first obvious question
is what can the UK Government do to make UK academic institutions
more attractive to Indian students?
Dr Vyakarnam: I think there are
several layers to this. One of them would be the visa rules and
the costs of visas and the whole process of getting people through
that operation. There are possibilities to enable Indian students
that are here either to get more bursaries or some way of subsidising
the cost of their education. I would target those on the high
end institutions, research-oriented institutions, like the Russell
Group, and then allowing the students to stay long enough to gain
some experience of the way that British business is conducted
and maybe to recover some of the costs of their university education
and then probably become partly global citizens, go back to India
and take a longer view on that. Certainly there is work to be
done in those three or four areas.
Q286 Roger Berry: Is it the case
that, the US, and presumably, I believe, other countries, like
Australia, for example, in terms of fees, visa arrangements, and
so on, these are the significant factors which make the States
or Australia more attractive, and if we address those would that
be sufficient to attract more students?
Dr Vyakarnam: I think Britain
also needs to regain its profile in India as the place to go to,
it is not seen as attractive to come here, compared with the USA,
for instance, and some of the big-name institutions. I heard recently,
I think through you, Karan, that Harvard Business School are opening
a research office in Mumbai, for instance. I am not aware that
any British university is doing anything similar.
Mr Bilimoria: I am attending the
launch of that next month, in India.
Dr Vyakarnam: Being at Cambridge,
I am aware that the University is very interested. I looked up
the numbers and they are tiny, there are 128 students at Cambridge
whose normal country of residence is India, 40 or so undergraduates
and 80 or so postgraduates. India is in fourth place behind China,
Singapore and Malaysia for those numbers, far exceeding Germany
and France, it has to be said, which were at eight and seven last
year, at Cambridge. These numbers are tiny. I believe the number
has grown, the total of Indian students in the UK has grown—and
I would like to have this confirmed at some stage—to about
18,000 from about 3,000 a few years ago, so it is heading in the
right direction. The concern for Britain has to be where these
students go, which type of institution they go to and how long
and sustainable these links are for future trade and what sorts
of courses they are on, so we need some more data on that.
Q287 Roger Berry: I am genuinely
shocked by the numbers you have given of students of Indian origin
at Cambridge.
Dr Vyakarnam: It is very tiny.
Q288 Roger Berry: It is very tiny
indeed. What is IBPN doing to encourage Indian students to study
in the UK, given the implications for subsequent business?
Dr Vyakarnam: I think the start
of it is possibly having me on the Board as opposed to having
a manufacturer on the Board, so I am happy to step down if they
need somebody else instead! I have been on two visits to India
now, once as part of a JETCO mission, the report of which is published,
so if this Committee would like copies of that I am sure UKTI
can supply it.
Q289 Chairman: Yes; thank you.
Dr Vyakarnam: I went on the ministerial
delegation as well, trying really to focus in on the high technology
and linking that with the university sector and linking that with
entrepreneurship, which is my area of work. I think what we have
discovered is that, while India has got a knowledge base in the
laboratories, while it has got entrepreneurs, the types of entrepreneurs
that you find in India do not have the experience of disruptive
technology type of entrepreneurship that you find in Cambridge,
Oxford, London and other places and I think there is a role for
the linkages to be strengthened in those sorts of areas. More
broadly, encouraging more students, postgraduate students and
even undergraduate students, into these universities is a very
important part of what should be happening. I do not know if it
is part of what the Prime Minister's initiative is going to focus
on, the £10 million that has been allocated, but those are
small sums of money for the long-term benefits that Britain is
looking for really in the links.
Mr Bilimoria: Just one thing to
add there is that the growth is there, the number of Indian students
coming to UK universities is growing by 14%, year on year; as
Shai said, the latest figure is close to 18,000, for 2004-05 it
was 16,727. What is happening also is that British universities
are starting to get more proactive, to the extent of opening up
offices in India to recruit Indian students. I am Chancellor of
Thames Valley University and we have opened up an office in India
recently. It goes further, in the British universities also linking
up with Indian educational establishments, so, for example, the
London School of Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure within Thames
Valley University has got a link-up and an arrangement with catering
colleges in India. There is a lot of scope to further the integration,
and again that is one of Britain's greatest strengths. Yes, the
United States is perceived to be ahead of us, but I think British
universities, given our endowments, even at Cambridge, I think
are a quarter of Harvard University's, if I am not mistaken.
Dr Vyakarnam: They are tiny.
Mr Bilimoria: We punch above our
weight, as British universities, and have got respect around the
world and have several world-class universities, particularly
in the area of science and technology. To this day British universities
are considered some of the best in the world, so I think we do
have a lot to offer.
Dr Vyakarnam: I think any message
that can be sent out to encourage that would be very positive.
Q290 Chairman: Lord Patten is actually
in India at present, from Oxford, is he not?
Dr Vyakarnam: Yes, he is.
Chairman: We will be going to India at
the end of the week and we might even run into him, who knows.
Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Education is a significant
sector within the UK and it is a very broad sector, taking in
vocational as well as academic provision in HE. You have talked
about the Russell Group of universities, you have talked about
promoting those, but I would be far more interested in seeing
something on the website which actually defined what the FE provision
looks like within the UK, how that is sectored, because a research
assessment exercise would allow you to identify universities and
specific departments within universities with outstanding expertise.
I would have thought that those universities would very much like
to engage in a different marketplace, not necessarily to have
students come here but at least to provide courses in India which
could be accredited by British universities. Have you thought
about doing that?
Q291 Chairman: Can I ask a supplementary
to Claire's supplementary. How much is that the job of the British
Council rather than yourselves?
Mr Bilimoria: Where education
is concerned, it is the British Council's domain, but we are very,
very keen that it should be integrated. There is an interest from
our point of view. Some of this is happening already; for example,
City and Guilds, through the Confederation of Indian Industry,
are going to be carrying out courses for huge numbers of employees
in Indian companies throughout industry in India. You are absolutely
right, there is a lot of scope, some of it is happening already,
but there is scope to do far more and we are in regular dialogue
with the British Council about this.
Q292 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Are you getting
your education message across to your fellow Board members?
Dr Vyakarnam: Yes, they are very
supportive. There is a concept paper I have put in to the Board
and that has gone through the Board, now it is chugging along
through various other departments and we are trying to secure
the resources to make the link between hi-tech, university-type
linkages with the entrepreneurship connection. I think there is
a lot more that can be done; it is a major area of opportunity.
I think your suggestion of adding the university linkages to the
IBPN website is a very good one and I shall take that back to
the Board.
Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Thank you.
Q293 Miss Kirkbride: I wonder, do
you know what the student fee ratio is, if you are an Indian student,
how much less do you pay if you are an EU student, and the fact
that you are getting more people coming as post-grads, because
there is some financial support for post-grads, what is the fee
ratio there?
Dr Vyakarnam: I think it is a
very good question. I was at a function on Friday evening with
the Indian High Commissioner and he was saying, at a public meeting,
that he thought the Indian students were subsidising the EU students.
Q294 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: They are;
that is the truth of it.
Dr Vyakarnam: In spite of the
fee rates being what they are, student numbers are growing coming
to the UK, and that is an interesting message in itself really.
Certainly, there is very much a full-fee-paying approach.
Q295 Miss Kirkbride: What do they
pay, off the top of your head, for a course?
Dr Vyakarnam: They pay full fees,
whatever the institutional rates are for given courses, relative
to the domestic fee rates that the EU students pay.
Q296 Rob Marris: Nine thousand pounds?
Dr Vyakarnam: It depends on the
courses but, yes, around, say, £9,000, compared with EU students.
Chairman: The principle is well made
and it was a helpful observation.
Mr Hoyle: What is interesting is what
has been pointed out about the lack of use of UK universities.
How many actually are Chevening students, UK-sponsored students
from India coming to English universities, from India? I presume
we have got some; every country in the world we have a link with,
and such an important trading country, I just wonder how many
we are sponsoring?
Q297 Chairman: We will be meeting
the British Council.
Dr Vyakarnam: The numbers are
small. I could not get into the detail, but I think you are meeting
the British Council. The other people I would recommend would
be the Universities UK Group.
Mr Hoyle: Which now is a DTI-sponsored
scheme; in fairness, it is not the universities, it is actually
the UK Government giving money to the DTI and the DTI through
the UK presence in India, which usually is the High Commissioner,
and the best of students usually apply. This sets up a good trade
basis and this should have been going on for years. I am very
concerned that you have not got links.
Q298 Chairman: I agree with what
Lindsay Hoyle was saying. A lot of our discussion this morning
is about problems in India, liberalisation and the issues over
there and Dalits, and so on, and we have not spent much time looking
at the issues, that actually there are barriers here in the UK,
which could help develop our trade, and to me it seems this is
an absolutely central issue. We have heard of very ambitious targets
in the Australian universities to increase recruitment of students;
we do not seem to be anything like as ambitious here, there is
a failure of nerve, a lack of ambition here which really we need
to build on. Are we right to be interested in this issue, as you
see the Committee is?
Mr Bilimoria: It is a very important
issue. It is one of Britain's great strengths and we could attract
far more students, with the United States. There is not only the
perception about the opportunities as a student in the United
States, which is why so many Indian students go there, but also
the reality of getting scholarships and funding in the United
States, far more than over here.
Q299 Chairman: That will reinforce
the process that you were talking about earlier, that the cre"me
de la cre"me of the Indian diaspora are actually in California
and not in London and Cambridge?
Mr Bilimoria: The more we can
attract Indian students here, by providing them with scholarships,
by making it easier for them to work to supplement their fees,
to make it easier for them to stay on and work after they have
finished their studies and gain some experience, once you get
students over here you are building a lifelong link with that
person and they become ambassadors for Britain in India and you
never lose that link. It is not just them, their children then
are encouraged to come to the UK to study as well, so it is very,
very important from a number of different angles.
Dr Vyakarnam: I am delighted that
the message is being taken in the Margaret Thatcher room!
Chairman: Peter Bone has got another
question later and he expressed equal pleasure for that comment
as to one of your earlier comments.
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