A GB News presenter Emily Carver appeared on Tuesday’s Politics Live and her comments about overseas students didn’t end well.
Emily Carver claimed “we actually don’t know” if the “vast majority” of foreign students return home after completing their studies.
The debate came as Suella Braverman has announced a crackdown on overseas students bringing family members to the UK as part of a push to reduce net migration.
Overseas Students
Well, that was slammed by Madeleine Sumption of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, who was brought in immediately afterwards and asked by Coburn for “the best data” the UK has on the number of foreign students returning home within a year after their studies.
Sumption replied: “So we do have reasonably good data on this. Typically, if you look over a period of five to eight years, the large majority of people will not extend and go into other visas – so more than 80 per cent will see their visas expire.
“Then we have separate data that suggests that compliance is pretty high, so people do tend to return home after their visas expire.”
Russell Group
The Russell Group, which represents 24 leading universities, has said the restriction on foreign students bringing dependants with them, announced by the Home Office today, will make it harder for universities to diversify their foreign intake.
In a response, Tim Bradshaw, its chief executive, said: “International students bring a range of benefits to the UK as well as vital income to support education for UK students and world-leading research that benefits us all, which is why they feature prominently in the government’s own international education strategy.
“Global competition for international students is fierce and some of the announcements made today are likely to have a negative impact on universities’ plans to diversify their international student intakes.
“Bradshaw also said students should not be included in the net migration figures as if they are permanent migrants.”
Watch
The argument was also called out by Prof Brian Bell who said that students help the economy, and that should be seen as a good thing.
