Examination of Witnesses (Questions 367-405)
Q367 Chair: Thank you
very much. You have been extremely helpful. I am most grateful.
Thank you, Minister. Could I call to the dais the Minister from
the Foreign Office, Jeremy Browne. Minister, thank you very much
to come and give evidence today. I am sorry you were kept waiting,
but the evidence from the Minister of Business was so interesting
that we continued with our questioning. Welcome back to the Committee.
As a former Member of this Committee, we are delighted that you
have risen so fast so quickly.
Mr Browne: Thank
you very much, Chairman. I think I served on the Committee under
your chairmanship in my last few weeks.
Chair: Indeed.
Mr Browne: To a
former Foreign Office Minister, I am delighted to be here.
Chair: I am glad you are
here, because I was reading a copy of the West Country Newspaper,
and I understand that the concerns that so many people have about
the Government's proposals on immigration are now sorted, because
it quotes this in the edition on Monday, 28 February 2011, "Taunton
MP Jeremy Browne has assured the heads of Taunton and Wellington's
four independent schools that changes to visa arrangements will
mean overseas children will be welcome to study here. He said
this, 'I was pleased to be able to tell them that the Government
has listened to their concerns and the visa system will make sure
that British schools remain attractive to international students'".
Mr Winnick: All due to
the Minister.
Chair: Do we take it then,
as this is coming at the end of our inquiry, that everyone is
very happy about the Government's proposals?
Mr Browne: I am
pleased you are such an assiduous reader of important newspapers
like that one, Chairman. There are different categories, as the
Committee will know. There are children under the age of 18, many
of which studied at independent schools. There are further education
colleges, many of them teaching English, and then there are higher
education institutions, but for under-18s there are indeed four
independent schools in my constituency and they have something
in the region of 10% of their students recruited from outside
of the European Union.
Chair: They are all fine?
Mr Browne: They
see it as a value in terms of the fee income to the school, in
terms of enriching the cultural experience of the British and
other European pupils at the school, so it is important for them
to be able to attract children from outside the European Union,
and it is not the Government's intention to harm or restrict that,
because the restrictions would not apply to children.
Q368 Chair: Are you getting
any emails from your posts abroad that countries are concerned
about the Government's proposals on student visas? Is anyone upset
about this?
Mr Browne: When
I travel, lots of countries have raised concerns, which are not
necessarily hostility, but are questions they wish to discuss
about the Government's overall immigration policy.
Chair: Yes, but specifically
on visas—we are doing an inquiry on student visas—you
have had no concerns from any governments about the Government's
proposals on student visas?
Mr Browne: Four
governments have specifically responded to the consultation process.
Chair: Yes, but I am talking
about you in your capacity. As a Minister for Foreign Affairs,
as you travel around the world, as you get emails from your posts—
Mr Browne: It gets
raised in the course of conversations. I have to say it was raised
more frequently when I first became a Minister in the first month
of the Government than it does now, and I think a lot of the initial
concerns that foreign governments had were—
Chair: So it is not being
raised now with you?
Mr Browne: I cannot
remember it being raised specifically in the last month or two
in a general conversation.
Q369 Chair: How
are communications with Delhi, good between London and Delhi between
the Foreign Office in London and the High Commission? Would they
tell you if they had meetings?
Mr Browne: They
would. Although I am the Minister responsible within the Foreign
Office for immigration policy, I am not the Minister specifically
responsible for India, so I have not had the opportunity to travel
to India, but I have travelled—
Chair: But you know?
Mr Browne: I would
hope to, but I have travelled to quite a lot of countries that
do have significant numbers of people coming to study in this
country, China most obviously, but the Philippines, for example,
and it does come up in conversation.
Chair: It is just that
India's Higher Education Secretary, Mr Dass, met the High Commissioner
for India—it is reported in yesterday's Times of India—to
express his grave concern about the proposals and how they would
affect relations with India. Were you aware of that, since the
Prime Minister did go over last year and try to build up links
with India?
Mr Browne: Seeing
you asked what my experience has been, let me explain what my
experience has been, which is that when I became a Minister, and
certainly in the first few months of the Government, there were
anxieties raised on a frequent basis about whether greater restrictions
on immigration in Britain would have an impact on the country
that I happened to be in at the time, or the Ambassador or the
High Commissioner of the country I happened to be speaking to.
That was partly about students, but it was also about work visas
and it very obviously came up in a country like the Philippines
that has large numbers of people working here and some people
studying here as well. I think as the Government's proposals have
become better understood and the consultation process has evolved,
those concerns in some cases have been allayed, but obviously
the final arrangements the British Government intends to put in
place have not yet been announced and so countries who wish to
express their views are still able to do so and may wish to do
so. India, along with China, Japan and Canada, is one of the four
countries that has formally raised concerns and specifically to
do with students, as I understand it, in higher education—
Q370 Chair: How much
money does the Foreign Office spend annually on attracting international
students?
Mr Browne: I do
not have a specific figure.
Chair: You asked for two
officials to come. Do they have the figures?
Mr Browne: Let
me ask them in a second, but it is worth mentioning that I may
extol the virtues of young people from around the world coming
to study at excellent British universities during the course of
my overall business, but it would be rather hard to quantify that
in financial terms with the value of my speeches.
Chair: No, I am not trying
to put a value on your speeches.
Mr Browne: But
it is all part of our everyday offer as a country.
Q371 Chair: I think we
would like to know, Ms Clouder, what is your position in the Foreign
Office?
Fiona Clouder:
I am Acting Director, Migration.
Chair: Do you know how
much money is spent by the Government of the United Kingdom to
attract international students by the Foreign Office?
Fiona Clouder:
I think putting a specific figure on it is very difficult. My
colleague can talk about our studentship scheme that has a specific
funding line associated with it.
Chair: So you do not have
a figure?
Fiona Clouder:
I think attracting students to the UK is done through a number
of mechanisms, through high-level bilateral attractions—
Chair: No, I do not want
to know the mechanisms, we will come on to that. Do you know the
figure, just yes or no?
Fiona Clouder:
No.
Chair: Can somebody see
if they can find us a figure?
Andrew Whyte: I
can add some information, Chairman, certainly for the British
Council. The British Council contributes to the Prime Minister's
Initiative for International Education, which comes from a variety
of sources, and £1.7 million of the British Council's grant
in aid from the Foreign Office—
Q372 Chair: I am sorry,
Mr Whyte, just remind the Committee, what is your position in
the Foreign Office?
Andrew Whyte: Sorry,
my apologies. I am Andrew Whyte, I am Director of Communications
and I oversee the relationship with the British Council.
Q373 Chair: So basically
£1.7 million is spent, is it?
Andrew Whyte: £1.7
million is spent through the Prime Minister's Initiative for International
Education, which is the British Council's contribution to that.
The British Council also contributes to the Education UK Partnership,
which is an international brand for promoting UK international
education, and they put £1.15 million into that, and that
is money from their grant in aid. In addition, the British Council
runs a number of exhibitions using the Education UK brand—
Q374 Chair: How often
are they held?
Andrew Whyte: Well,
I don't know how often they are, but I know they're held in 33
countries every year.
Chair: To recruit students?
Andrew Whyte: Well,
not specifically to recruit students, because a lot of that of
course is done by institutions, but to promote international education
in the UK. Those cost £3.6 million, but they are done on
a full cost recovery basis so there's no actual cost to the Council.
Q375 Chair: So do you
have universities coming out and saying, "Come to Britain"?
Andrew Whyte: Yes.
Chair: So they would pay
the cost?
Andrew Whyte: Yes.
Q376 Chair: Minister,
you just—
Mr Browne: I just
want to say that I think it's very—I understand the basis
of your question, but I think it's a hard one to quantify because
a lot of young people around the world come to study in Britain
for all kinds of reasons and may or may not be attracted by the
efforts of the Government. I mean, they may be attracted by cultural
reasons or historical reasons or even academic reasons beyond
what the Government is saying, but we do routinely, in the course
of our business as Ministers and officials, explain what Britain
has to offer, which includes world-class education.
Q377 Mr Clappison: Very
quickly, notwithstanding what the Chairman has just said, we have
been supplied with a table of students coming to study in this
country and it looks as though the number one country is India
in supplying students to come to this country—and correct
me if I am wrong—and that the numbers have been increasing
in each year, it would appear, in the last few years, and in one
year jumped from 27,000 to 58,000. I do not know if you have seen
those figures or can throw any light on them.
Mr Browne: The
most recent figures I have are for 2009. I don't know if that's
the calendar year, but I have 61,000 Indians and they are indeed
the top country, ahead of China, which is—
Q378 Mr Clappison: Yes,
and it has grown very substantially from previous years apparently,
according to the table we have been supplied with. Is that right?
The official is nodding her head. Is there an explanation for
this leap? Because it has been put to you that you are not listening
to India, oddly enough, and the figures seem to show otherwise.
I was just wondering what the explanation is.
Fiona Clouder:
I think if we look at how we have upped our engagement with India
in recent years across a number of fronts, not least by the Prime
Minister's recent initiative with a major delegation last summer,
India is of course a growing economy. It is very, very important
that we attract the brightest and the best from India, but also
India is also a source of abuse and I think in developing the
policy on the student visa system, it is important we get that
balance right between attracting the brightest and the best and
cutting down on sources of abuse.
Q379 Mark Reckless: Before
we were in Turkey, I was on an IPU delegation to Georgia, and
one of the issues that was raised there with me, by both the patriarch
of the Georgia church and the leader of the Christian Democrat
opposition, was the importance of the Chevening sort of scholarships
for international students, and very serious concerns were expressed
on the cutbacks there, and given we have just spent an enormous
amount on a new embassy, I just wondered if this economy was sensible
and whether its impact on our foreign policy was sort of greater
than any money saved.
Mr Browne: Let
me take a sort of broad approach, which is that the Foreign Office
shares the overall corporate objectives of the Government, which
is to address our chronic budget deficit, we are borrowing £425
million, as you know, every single day, and we regard that as
unsustainable. Now, of course the Foreign Office budget as a share
of total Government spending is very small. In fact, we borrow,
as a country, more money every weekend than we spend on global
diplomacy annually. But nevertheless, we have to make our contribution
to what the Government as a whole is trying to achieve, and that
means finding greater efficiencies within our own department,
and there are very few exemptions, and the scholarship programme
is not one of them. But we value the programme, we wish it to
be successful, we are keen to ensure that the money is spent as
efficiently and as effectively as possible, we are exploring options
for reducing overhead costs, we are exploring options for increasing
the amount of additional sponsorship and revenue that comes into
the scheme. Of course in total immigration terms, we are talking
about a very small number of people, so in the immigration context
this is not a particularly significant issue, but in terms of
global influence and reach, I meet Chevening scholars on a frequent
basis, and they are generally well-disposed towards Britain and
it's an asset to us that they are so.
Q380 Mark Reckless: With
respect, Mr Browne, there is one very big exception from the cuts
in terms of the Foreign Office's, which is the European Union,
and in particular what I saw in Georgia was there was 200 people
in this EU monitoring mission, which was set up on the assumption
they would be patrolling both sides of the sort of boundary line
with the Russian enclaves, on one of those people are saying that
there is too much in terms of sort of flower picking and bunny
hugging and the people there did not seem to have an awful lot
to do. There is the 16 million just spent on a new embassy, very
luxurious for our officials, yet the one thing raised with us
by both the leading opposition spokesman and the patriarch of
the church, a very modest cost, these scholarships, seemed to
be having this sort of huge reaction, and I just wondered in terms
of your priorities.
Mr Browne: There
are some exceptions, and the Foreign Secretary is due to announce
shortly how the Foreign Office intends to spent its budget allocation
for the next financial year, but there will be some countries
where we will increase our amount of spending to reflect the increased
importance of that country in our foreign relations, even against
an overall reduction in the headline Foreign Office budget. So
there are areas that will be protected, or in some cases enhanced,
but it is against an overall backdrop, as I say, of reduced costs.
The one area that is not so obviously and directly within our
control is our contribution to the European Union; I am not the
Europe Minister, but that is part of a process that the Chairman
no doubt could shed additional light on in terms of negotiations
with the other 26 member states of the European Union.
Q381 Chair: But it would
be helpful—I will certainly shed some light on that with
Mr Reckless privately later, but it would be helpful if you could
take up Mr Reckless' point about the Chevening scholarships and
perhaps write to us, unless you have—
Mr Browne: Well,
Mr Whyte leads on this specific programme in the past.
Chair: How many
Chevening scholars are there now?
Andrew Whyte: Around
about 600.
Chair: Why are
we cutting them in Georgia?
Andrew Whyte: I
don't know the details on Georgia, what I do know, and Mr Reckless
is absolutely right, there was a reduction in the Chevening budget
this year as part of the initial response, when the new Government
came in, to the scenario that the Minister has just outlined,
and there was a reduction in expenditure this year.
Chair: But you understand
Mr Reckless' point, you are not a politician, but you are an official,
and his point is he has just come back from Georgia where they
spent £16 million on a new embassy, and all they want is
a few scholarships to come and study here. It seems a priority
issue.
Andrew Whyte: I
can't give you the answer on Georgia; what I can tell you is that
we are increasing expenditure on Chevening scholarships next year—
Chair: Excellent.
Andrew Whyte:—not
back to the level they were previously, but increased on there,
so 2011/12 Chevening scholarships will be higher than they are
in 2010/11.
Q382 Mark Reckless: Can
we follow-up on this issue?
Mr Browne: Write
to me directly.
Mark Reckless: Well, if
you could write to me.
Mr Browne: But
they are separate budget headings, there is not a pool of money
that is spent on estate management and Chevening scholarships,
and we need to make sure that we have suitable buildings for our
staff to work in around the world. There is a completely separate
budget heading, which is how much money we spend on Chevening
scholarships.
Chair: We do not need
you to defend that, we perfectly understand, having been—
Mr Browne: There
is not a pot of money for Georgia and then a discretion about
whether you have a new building or a Chevening scholarship.
Chair: Minister, we do
understand that, but what would be helpful is if you could write
to me about the current position on Chevening scholars generally
with some facts and figures, which obviously you do not have now;
and Mr Reckless will then follow up with you.
Q383 Nicola Blackwood:
Thank you, Chair. One of the concerns which we have received from
degree-offering colleges and also lower than degree-offering colleges,
are the problem of bogus agents who act as a route for bogus students
to come into the UK to genuine colleges. There have been a number
of recommendations along the lines of different versions of accrediting.
We were wondering what role the British Council thought it could
play in helping these colleges to ensure that the agents they
engage with are genuine and are genuinely trying to bring in legitimate
students.
Mr Browne: Well,
maybe I'll answer initially and then, with your permission, Mr
Whyte could add to it. First of all, I am delighted that Oxford
and Cambridge University MPs are sitting next to each other, great
global brands in the context of this conversation, and there is
a concern about abuse. I think it's one of the main public concerns
in this country. I mean, this is an issue better addressed by
the Immigration Minister than by me, but it is a concern to people
here that people who would not be able to get visas to come into
the country by a work route come into the country by an education
route instead and then work illegally when they are here, and
I think it's right and proper the Government should address that.
It also has some diplomatic disadvantages, because of course some
people coming from other countries are seeking to exploit the
system, but others may be coming here innocently with good intentions
and then find that the course is inadequate compared to the amount
of money they paid for it because the institution is not expressly
designed to provide courses, it is there to provide a way of circumnavigating
the immigration rules. So we are keen to address that; it is obviously
a Home Office lead, but we want to maintain the reputation of
British education around the world and that is why the Home Office
is looking at the accreditation process and trying to make sure
that it has a robust integrity. But you may wish to—
Chair: Mr Whyte?
Andrew Whyte: Yes.
I mean, obviously the British Council provides an accreditation
service for English language teaching institutions here, and I
think you have had evidence from somebody from there previously.
Chair: We have received
evidence from them, yes.
Andrew Whyte: But
I think their view would be that they don't think that it would
be appropriate for a number of reasons for them to extend that
accreditation into overseas operations, into the international
arena. I think first of all there is a cost element, it would
be very costly to do it, they are not geared up to do it at the
moment, they don't believe they have the capacity in their staffing
at the moment; that is not what their role is, and it would be
expensive to add that, and they see no way of recovering those
costs. I think there are some legal issues as well, there are
no sort of established legal criteria and legal processes by which
you could judge accreditation in different countries, so there
would be some difficulty in establishing criteria and then perhaps
some of the judgments being open to challenge in individual countries—that
they would make. Also, there is no real international consensus
on what aspects of—that you could do to set up an accreditation
service, so what are the principles that you would work on. The
other thing I think they would say is that, on their experience,
there is very little evidence from the UK higher education sector
that they want the British Council to play that particular role.
But, having said all of that, I mean they do encourage UK institutions
to carry out due diligence on their agencies, so the people they
are talking to in this country when they are accrediting them,
they do encourage them to carry out due diligence and they do
provide them some support and advice, I think an online training
programme, to help people go through the sort of questions they
should be asking to do that due diligence themselves.
Q384 Nicola Blackwood:
That is an interesting start, but what is the current system,
if a college feels like it has concerns about a specific agent,
is there communication between UKBA and the in-country embassy
to ensure that those concerns are passed on and that information
is communicated perhaps to other colleges who might similarly
have experienced problems?
Mr Browne: Well,
that is more of a Home Office lead than a Foreign Office lead,
so it is better to ask the Immigration Minister, but—
Chair: Do you want to
chip in, Ms Clouder?
Fiona Clouder:
Yes, Chair, if I can just comment. Certainly there are lots of
mechanisms of communication between the universities and between
the Home Office, and there is then very active communication back
to our embassies and including colleagues from the Serious Organised
Crime Agency, risk assessment officers based in our visa sections
overseas, so there is good communication to try and track down
these bogus agents and clamp down on that, and it is a very important
part of the system.
Q385 Dr Huppert: Thank
you. If I could turn the Government's proposals for the consultation,
how involved has the Foreign Office been in developing that policy
in response to the consultation and in looking at the responses
to the consultation?
Mr Browne: Yes,
it is a Home Office lead, but we have been closely involved. I
meet with the Immigration Minister on a monthly basis; they are
very open, good exchanges, and we have the opportunity to raise
any concerns that we have and we do so if that is appropriate.
We are keen, I mean I was going to come back to the point that
Mr Clappison was making a few minutes ago, which is we shouldn't
regard an increase in the number of students coming here, obviously
with the caveat that they are doing so properly, as being a sign
of failure, it is a great sign of success that a growing economy
like India, and a growing middle class in India, sees an attraction
of their young people, and their cleverest young people, coming
and studying in the United Kingdom. In some places, if you take
somewhere like Indonesia, it is the fourth biggest population
in the world, a G20 country, we are in very direct competition
with Australia, for example, to try and attract their brightest
young people who want to study in a country where the first language
is English, so we—
Q386 Chair: So you would
not want any proposals that would limit that?
Mr Browne: Well,
it is appropriate that we have an overall migration policy that
enjoys the confidence of the British public, and the abuses that
have been alluded to by some Members of the Committee are ironed
out of the system so much as that is possible. But one of the
greatest opportunities Britain has to project itself on the global
stage, if you like, is the quality and reputation of our education,
particularly our higher education, but right through to independent
schools and elsewhere, and it has a substantial immediate financial
benefit to those institutions and to our economy as a whole, but
it has a longer-lasting reputational benefit, because there are
extraordinarily large numbers of people right around the world
in positions of influence in politics, business and elsewhere,
who have studied at British institutions, and we are keen to use
that opportunity to continue to have that kind of influence.
Chair: Indeed. Minister,
we will be coming on to all those points. Because time is short,
if you could just tailor your answers to the particular question,
we are going to deal with all the other points.
Q387 Dr Huppert: I think
it does link to what I was about to ask you. We have had some
comments from other witnesses that a focus on net migration, in
as much as it affects students, is simply the wrong way to look
at this, because the vast majority of students come and then they
leave, so in fact net, over a long time period, there are not
extra numbers, and that countries such as Australia are very successful
at distinguishing between students coming and leaving, and people
coming to settle, a different terminology. Do you think it would
be appropriate to change the way we discuss the figures, to move
away from counting students as migrants? Because we have struggled
to find organisations, which consider them to be in the same category,
Migration Watch were not concerned about student numbers per se.
Mr Browne: Well,
it would be possible to do that, but the Government's commitment
is to reduce from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands the
levels of net migration based on the current calculations rather
than a new set of calculations, and, as you rightly say, we may
have some new success, particularly because a lot of the economies
of the world where we should be very pleased that bright young
people want to come and study in Britain, like India and China,
are growing very strongly, so the demand is likely to increase
in the short to medium term. But, as you rightly say, if it levels
out, then we will be in a position where the inflow and outflow
will roughly match and it would not have an impact on the Government's
overall statistics.
Q388 Dr Huppert: But
how do you fit your stated desire a couple of questions ago, to
see an increase in international students competing in Indonesia
and so forth, with the Government's objective of reducing that
number?
Mr Browne: There
are quite a few issues, and again it is a Home Office matter,
but there are a few issues with using net migration as the overall
measure, because of course one of the things you do not control
is the number of British people who migrate to other countries,
and that has an impact on the net migration, and you might reduce
the amount of immigration, but find that the amount of emigration
has also reduced and you are not at the point you wish to be at.
So it is a difficult measure for the Government to be certain
that it will meet, but the Government is not proposing, or at
least not as far as I'm aware, to change the—move the goalposts,
if you like, in terms of the way that immigration is measured
in terms of the Prime Minister's commitment to reduce to tens
of thousands the number of net migrants coming into the country
each year. So, if there is an increase in student numbers, for
the two or three years before they feed out of the system, that
would have an impact on the overall net migration statistics as
measured by the Home Office.
Q389 Chair: I think Dr
Huppert's point is obviously you have put the legal position forward,
public opinion, for example in the West Country, would not regard
those bright young people from abroad who pay very large fees
and go to Wellington to be taught by the great Dr Seldon, they
would not regard them as migrants, would they?
Mr Browne: I should
clarify a point, which is that is a different Wellington school.
Lord Archer, Weston Super Mare, attended the one in my constituency.
Some people feel that he could have conveyed that more clearly.
Chair: But these four
independent schools that you spoke to over the weekend, or whenever
you spoke to them, the fact is, does the public regard a student,
coming here genuinely to study, and leaving after three years,
would they regard them as a migrant?
Mr Browne: Well,
they wouldn't be counted, the ones at the four independent schools
in my constituency, and they may stay for more than three years,
because they would be under the age of 18.
Chair: But you understand
the point I am making?
Mr Browne: I understand
the point that you are making. One could make the case for the
rules to be reframed in such a way that students weren't counted
in the overall figures on net migration, but—
Chair: I am not talking
about the rules; I'm talking about public opinion.
Mr Browne:—but
that is not the Government's position. I think the public do,
for what it's worth, I mean, I have no more insight into public
opinion than anyone else in the room, but my view is that the
public probably do differentiate between students and other forms
of migration, with the caveat that they are concerned about abuses,
and they probably, within education, differentiate between a brilliant
Indian scientist going to study physics at Cambridge University
and some of what they might regard as the rather easier routes
of entry to do some English language courses at some other institutions.
So it is important that, if there is public confidence in our
institutions attracting bright young people from around the world
that that public confidence is well deserved, because we are tightening
the entry routes that are particularly—
Q390 Steve McCabe: Morning,
Minister. Minister, can I ask you, how many of the top five or
six high-risk visa countries are you responsible for?
Mr Browne: In geographic
terms, half I think of all students studying from outside the
European Union in the United Kingdom, half of them come from the
top five countries, so there is quite a concentration, and they
are India, China, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and the United States
of America, and I am only responsible—
Steve McCabe: I have the
list; I want to know how many you are responsible for, Minister.
Mr Browne: I am
responsible for one of those, which is China. Although British
higher education has a great attraction in South East Asia, which
I'm also responsible for, and of course it is partly distorted,
that list, by those being very high population countries in the
main, so it's quite a high proportion of students, for example,
from Thailand, as a percentage of their population, come to study
here, but because the population of Thailand is comparable to
ours, whereas China's is 25 times bigger—
Q391 Steve McCabe: For
the purposes of this, you are responsible for China, which is
one of the top five?
Mr Browne: It is
the second highest; I think there's about 85,000 Chinese students
at any given point.
Q392 Steve McCabe: No,
no, the proposal I understand is to make it more difficult to
obtain visas from the high-risk countries; that is what you are
consulting on. When you have spoken to your opposite number in
China and their officials, how have you put that proposal to them
and what have they said to you about it?
Mr Browne: Sorry,
labouring the same point again, but a higher proportion of Thai
come to study in Britain than the proportion of Chinese, so it's
not just absolute numbers, so these points—
Steve McCabe: No, I am
asking about the high-risk visa countries though.
Mr Browne:—get
raised in lots of countries, not just those. My—
Steve McCabe: No, I was
asking about your discussions with China.
Mr Browne:—direct
experience is that every country I have spoken to, they understand
that we wish to prevent abuses through the education route and
they are supportive of attempts to try and make sure that people
are not coming here as students on student visas when their real
purpose for being in the United Kingdom is because they wish to
work or some other reason. If they thought that the migration
system was being tightened beyond that, they may have additional
concerns, but specific concerns about the integrity of the system;
my experience is that foreign Governments support what we are
trying to do there because they understand—
Q393 Steve McCabe: Minister,
I do not want to put words in your mouth, but I just want to be
clear that I have understood your answer. Is it the case that,
when you have had recent discussions with Chinese officials and
your opposite number in China, they have welcomed the proposals
to tighten the visa regime because of the abuse that you suspect
exists, have they said to you, and can we quite reliably put in
the report, that you are saying the Chinese welcome this proposal
to tighten visas against them, to differentiate?
Mr Browne: I can't
remember whether I have had, in those specific terms, that specific
discussion with a Chinese Minister, but I have had those discussions
with Ministers of Governments in Asian countries, and—
Steve McCabe: Yes, but
it is a high-risk country; that is why I am asking about China.
Mr Browne: In every
case that I can recall, they have recognised that we have to have
an immigration system, which is robustly enforced and is not abused,
and they don't want their own citizens to be abusing it, and if
we are taking measures to prevent their own citizens from abusing
it, they fully understand that position. But it's worth also saying
that we want to attract the brightest and best students who wish
to study outside their countries to the United Kingdom; it's not
the Government's policy to try and necessarily attract every single
young person in the world who might want to study, regardless
of their aptitude, to the United Kingdom, so we want to be in
a position where good, high-quality people can come here and add
value to our institutions and revenue to our institutions, and
that is what we are wishing to do, and it is an important part
of our foreign policy and my view is that we will not have an
immigration policy, which conflicts with that objective, but it
ought to tighten the system where it is abused, and I think that
is well understood by foreign nationals as well.
Q394 Chair: To be clear,
it is the abuse from the bogus colleges and students you are concerned
about? Genuine students coming here to study, you welcome the
increase in India, for example, although some may be alarmed at
the increase because they want to know why it was happening, such
as in Bangladesh, when there was a huge increase, and it was then
suspended, but clearly the Foreign Office is not alarmed about
this.
Mr Browne: If the
reason for the increase is because an increasingly outward-looking
ambitious number of people in the said country wish their children,
or the children themselves wish to be educated in the United Kingdom,
rather than the United States or Germany or Australia or whatever
it might be; that is something that I think we should be pleased
about and our institutions will be pleased about that as well,
and it is something that I make a virtue of, when I go to these
countries I say, "I hope that you will consider coming to
study in our country". When I went to Nottingham University
20 years ago myself, ten years ago Nottingham University opened
a Malaysian campus, five years ago Nottingham University opened
a China campus, and a few months ago I went to the Nottingham
University China campus. The reason I'm making this point is because,
so successful is the British educational model, that the institutions
are able to take the product to the customer, rather than just
waiting for the customer to come to the product, if I can put
it in those terms, and there are 5,000 people studying at the
Nottingham University China campus. I wish more of them were British,
because I think it would be a great opportunity for British people
to have exposure to China, but overwhelmingly they are Chinese
people who are benefiting from British education without necessarily
having to come to Britain.
Chair: There are now,
as a result of you opening your campus at your old alma mater,
there are now—
Mr Browne: I think
Lord Prescott opened it, but I visited it.
Chair: There are now 10,000
Malaysian students, 10,265 in the United Kingdom, 5,000 of which
were studying at Nottingham.
Mr Browne: I was
not aware of those particular figures, but there are some Government
figures that even I don't know off the top of my head.
Chair: I have just told
you what they are.
Mr Browne: The
point I am making, I think it's a very exciting development, and—
Chair: So you are very
pleased about all of this?
Mr Browne:—I
think we should be excited about it, which is, as I am saying,
an individual could study an engineering degree at Nottingham
University and they could spend one year in Nottingham, one year
in Malaysia, one year in China, and have exactly the same degree
at the end as if they had never left the East Midlands. Now, I
think that is a very exciting opportunity for cultural exchange,
for British higher education having even greater brand strength,
if you want to put it, around the world, and in some cases that
won't require the students from the other countries to come to
the United Kingdom at all if they don't wish to.
Chair: I do understand,
but could I just ask for a little bit of brevity in answers, because
I think a lot of people want to come in, and we want to release
you by midday.
Q395 Michael Ellis: Thank
you, Mr Chairman. Just on the issue of campuses abroad, and, as
you have said, a number of British universities have already opened
campuses, or are opening campuses abroad, and there is China and
there's others in the Middle East. My specific question is concerning
the—I'm interested in the UK projected overseas, and in
a soft way, the soft power method. Now, it is going to become
increasingly attractive, is it not, to both universities and students,
if international students find it more difficult to come and travel
to the UK for them to study here, for them to use the campuses
overseas. Now, is that going to have an adverse effect, do you
think, on British soft power projecting in that way, in other
words, our influence in these areas may often relate to immersion
in our culture, will we lose that?
Chair: Minister, a brief
answer, because we do want to make progress.
Mr Browne: I hope
the brightest and best young people from around the world will
choose to come to the United Kingdom, or at least look seriously
at the option of coming to the United Kingdom. Of course, the
question depends on whether the Chinese student studying at the
Ningbo Nottingham University campus would otherwise be studying
at Nottingham, or whether otherwise they would not have gone to
a British institution at all, and I have not seen any particular
research into that matter. But, if it were the case that they
would otherwise be going to an institution in another country,
or another university in China, then you could regard that in
soft power terms as a sort of net benefit.
Michael Ellis: Yes, they
will doubtless have some influence on a British campus overseas,
other than none if they were not.
Mr Browne: What
I was quite interested in when I went to the Nottingham University
China campus was, of course it's not the same as being in Nottingham,
and as I say, I would love more British young people to take the
opportunity, if they were studying at Nottingham University, to
spend some time at the China campus, I think it would be a good
experience, and I was depressed that very few had chosen to take
that opportunity. But they may have more exposure to British culture,
if you can put it in those terms, than you might imagine. For
example, all the courses are taught in English and it is not a
franchise arrangement, this is a Nottingham University course
with the same rigour and the same content in most cases as the
courses as would be the case in Britain, and one of the attractions
is that you are getting a British type of education, not just
that it is physically located in the United Kingdom.
Q396 Steve McCabe: Very
briefly, I wonder if you could just give me a glimpse into your
diplomacy, Minister. When you say to foreign students, "I
wish more of you would come and visit in Britain" and you
say, "But I am going to make the visa regime tougher"
what do they say back to you?
Mr Browne: What
I say, for example, I spoke at a university in Indonesia, and
per capita four times more Thais come to university in Britain
than Indonesians. Indonesia is an increasingly important country;
I think we should be looking to attract more Indonesians, the
brightest and best Indonesians to study here. I always say to
them that, "I think it's important that we have a level of
net migration, which can be assimilated into our society, and
I think it's important that the rules and systems are not abused,
but I would strongly recommend that you look seriously at the
option of studying at a British university or another educational
institution because we have some of the best in the world and
I think that you will enjoy it and you will benefit intellectually
and in other ways from coming to study in the United Kingdom".
Steve McCabe: What do
they say?
Mr Browne: I hope
they find my arguments compelling, Mr McCabe. What is interesting
is that we are generally regarded globally as second only to the
United States in terms of the attraction of our education system,
and particularly in Asia where about three-quarters, just short
of three-quarters of all foreign nationals from outside the EU,
who study in Britain, come from Asia, and the other part of the
world that I'm responsible for is Latin America, I think we have
a deficiency there. The value of British education is better understood
in Asia than it is, for example, in Latin America.
Q397 Steve McCabe: Would
we want to increase numbers from Latin America?
Mr Browne: I think
that would be good for us, if we were attracting high-quality
bright people to study from, say, Brazil, which is an increasingly
important country, and one that we have links with, which, in
my view, need to be strengthened in the future.
Q398 Steve McCabe: Have
you any idea how much we could increase numbers from Latin America
by without it affecting your overall targets, Minister?
Mr Browne: There's
a number of questions bound up in that, because of course it's
for the individual universities, if we're talking about universities,
to decide for themselves how many non-UK or non-EU students they
wish to have, so they may not wish to recruit them, and we're
not in a position to force them.
Chair: A brief answer
to Mr McCabe, around about how many more would you like to see?
Mr Browne: I don't
have a figure in mind and it wouldn't necessarily have an impact
if, as I was saying to Dr Huppert, there is a corresponding outflow
at the other end of the system.
Chair: Right, so we may
have to send more people out.
Q399 Bridget Phillipson:
Minister, on the issue of China, Sunderland University in my area
attracts a large number of students from China, and what they
have said to me is that the tone of pronouncements from Government
Ministers, and just the very fact of the consultation in itself,
is already having a knock-on effect on their ability to attract
students and they are seeing a growing reluctance for Chinese
students to come and study in the UK who are now considering other
countries. Now, for a new university like Sunderland, who are
already facing big cuts in their teaching grant, do you understand
the kinds of concerns that they're expressing about the tone that
the Government has adopted in this area?
Mr Browne: I hope
having a former Foreign Secretary on their advisory board will
help, but I don't want to second guess, I haven't had those conversations
with Sunderland University myself, but my hope is that Chinese
bright, talented people who would benefit from studying at Sunderland
University, and Sunderland University wishes to recruit and attract
them, that that should still be able to happen. I think it's a
very important part of Britain developing stronger relations with
increasingly important countries like China. And it is possible—and
I can't speak for every individual student—but it is possible
that the very fact the Government is looking at this area may
be misinterpreted by some people or may create anxieties for some
people, and I hope that those anxieties will be allayed, because
our headline objective of Government, of trying to make sure that
we attract people, particularly I think from these emerging economies,
which are increasingly important to Britain's foreign policy interests
as well, that remains our objective, and so, if Chinese students
don't think that's our objective then clearly we need to correct
that. Although the overall numbers are very strong from China,
and my suspicion is they will continue to grow. That may not be
necessarily in every single institution, but, if there is a dip,
perhaps I would suggest, as people in China and elsewhere come
to see that their worst fears have not been realised, it may well
be that we carry on, on an upward projection, as more and more
people in China see the benefits of being educated in a British
university.
Q400 Bridget Phillipson:
With regards to soft power, we have received a great deal of evidence
about the importance of British students being able to come and
study in the UK in terms of our soft power overseas; that those
people will often go on to become the leaders in business, in
civil society, and in politics. What is your view on that?
Mr Browne: I am
an extremely enthusiastic supporter of the premise that you have
just put. Britain has the sixth biggest economy in the world.
By the middle of the century it is projected that the total EU
population will be 5% of the world's population, the total EU
economy will be 10% of the world's economy, and Britain will have
slipped from sixth to about tenth, depending on which projection
you believe. But Britain's place in the world is not just a league
table of GDP, and we have all kinds of influence, which is beyond
our economic strength, and one of those, possibly the greatest
of all, is the reputation of our universities and broader education
sector, and this gives us a huge amount of influence and goodwill
and friendship and we must—
Chair: We must not put
that at risk.
Mr Browne: I don't
wish us to put it at risk, but that is not incompatible with having
a properly enforced and rigorous immigration system, and so, if
the premise of your question was that a rigorous immigration system
would put it at risk, I don't accept that premise.
Q401 Chair: Because I
asked the library to do a note on foreign heads of Government
who were educated in this country, the King of Bhutan went to
Oxford, the Prime Minister of India went to Oxford and Cambridge,
the Prime Minister of Malaysia went to Nottingham, the Prime Minister
of Singapore went to Cambridge, the King of Bahrain went to Cambridge,
the King of Jordan went to Oxford, the King of Jordan also went
to Kings College London, the Emir of Qatar went to Sandhurst,
the Sultan of Oman was educated here until he was 16, the president
of Syria went to the Western Eye Hospital, George Papandreou,
the Prime Minister of Greece, went to the LSE, the King of Monaco
went to Bristol, and the President of Turkey went to Exeter, and,
of our senior Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister went to Minnesota
University and the College of Europe in Bruges, the Foreign Secretary
went to France to study, the Chancellor went to Davidson College
in the United States, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
went to the Sorbonne in Paris, and Lord Strathclyde went to the
University of Aix-en-Provence. So that means international students
are very, very important to this country.
Mr Browne: I feel
inadequate compared to that. When I went to Nottingham China campus,
it was interesting; I met the Chancellor of Nottingham University,
who is a Chinese professor, that is not the Chancellor of the
Nottingham China campus, that is the Chancellor of Nottingham
fullstop. So a big change is taking place in the British educational
institutions who have the imagination and the size of vision to
realise how profound the overall changes are in the world and
we have a great opportunity to be part of that process. But, as
I say, I think we are doing well in Asia and parts of the Middle
East, and your list suggested that there are great historical
ties there, what is quite interesting and conspicuous is there
are some other parts of the world, and I mentioned Latin America,
which appear not to feature on your list, and I think there is
further scope for improvement in that area.
Q402 Chair: But the Foreign
Office position on this is very clear, you want to see more students
coming here, you think we are an international centre, however,
you want to make sure net migration goes down, which means in
a sense—
Mr Browne: The
view of the Foreign Office, my view, is that our approach to a
rapidly changing world should not be to pull up the drawbridge,
it should be to have global aspirations and to think in those
terms, and we wish to attract more students from right around
the world, particularly economies who are developing quickly and
will become increasingly important to us. It is not a complete
numbers game, we want to attract high-calibre good students, we
don't want to attract large numbers of people who are manifestly—don't
have the academic rigour to undertake the courses.
Chair: Indeed, get rid
of all the bogus students.
Mr Browne: Bogus
students, and also, be blunt about it, there will be some people
who will not have the aptitude necessary to prosper at our educational
institutions. We want to attract the brightest and the best people
from around the world, particularly rapidly emerging economies,
but we do regard that as being compatible with the Government's
overall objectives on migration.
Q403 Michael Ellis: So
it does not follow, does it, Minister, that tightening up the
system to reduce bogus applicants and to improve the quality of
students is going to have a deleterious effect on the type of
applicants that our Chairman has just outlined, in other words
we can get the numbers down and improve the quality?
Mr Browne: I agree
with that. In fact, it may even have a beneficial effect because
it may further enhance the reputation of British education, if
the abusers are tackled effectively.
Q404 Chair: It is abuse
and the bogus colleges that you are most concerned with, as with
other Ministers?
Mr Browne: Yes,
we do not want the most brilliant Indian physicist to think that
they are not able to come and study at Cambridge University, we
hope that they will see the attraction in studying at Cambridge
University rather than studying at an Indian university, or for
that matter a university in the United States or Australia or
Canada or some other country.
Chair: Or indeed at Nottingham.
We have just come back from Turkey.
Mr Browne: We have
so many brilliant people at Nottingham University.
Q405 Chair: Just a final
question: the Committee is also doing an inquiry—because
we also, like you, are multi-tasking—into the implications
of Turkey joining the EU. I am not going to ask you any questions
about Turkey, but we would like to place on record, Ms Clouder,
because we understand you are in charge of the migration section
in the Foreign Office, how impressed we were by the work that
was being done by Emma Robinson, who is part of your section as
the Migration Delivery Officer, and the relationship between her
and the SOCA people who we met there, and that kind of work is
extremely important, and I just thought it was—because the
Members that went were very impressed with that. We are very grateful
for what has been done there. Turkey is an extremely important
country in terms of dealing with illegal migration and organised
crime, and what Emma Robinson does, with the SOCA agents, is of
great value to this country.
Fiona Clouder:
Thank you very much, Chairman, that's very good to hear. We think
very highly of Emma, she is one of a network of 14 migration delivery
officers around the world, and those posts in my department are
funded by the UK Borders Agency, in collaboration with the Foreign
Office, and I think that's a very good example of cross-Government
working.
Chair: Good, thank you
very much. Minister, thank you so much for coming. That concludes
the session.
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