Students Or Migrants?

The Theresa May government refuses to change its policy on counting international students as migrants, making it tough for them to stay on legally at the end of their course, despite critics pointing to the government’s dependence on flawed data to show a rise in net migration.

- Vidya Ram

IN JANUARY THIS YEAR, LORD HANNAY OF Chiswick, a former diplomat and cross-bench member of the House of Lords, introduced an amendment to a controversial Bill on higher education seeking to remove international students from Britain’s net migration figures and not treat them as economic migrants in Britain. The government had a duty to “encourage international students to attend higher education establishments covered by the Act”. Lord Hannay said at the time that he hoped the move would help “turn the page” on an “unhappy period in our history where people thought we were a very closed and unwelcoming nation”.

The legislation gathered much support in the House of Lords, and even as late as April hopes were high that the government would let the amendment pass. Then came the general election: in the run-up to the dissolution of Parliament before the election, the government toughened its stance and made it clear that it would not give way, erasing the amendment from the legislation. The developments were seen as a clear example of the commitment of Prime Minister Theresa May, a former Home Secretary, to keeping international students in the net migration figures, and therefore within the remit of the government’s commitment to reducing net migration in Britain to the tens of thousands from the hundreds of thousands.