Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)

My Lords, I believe this amendment supports the main thrust of the Bill, which seeks to help make our country safer and more secure, a goal that I share. It seeks to have a robust immigration system, and I commend the Government on that. The first step in that process is having the information that you require to give effect to efficacious public policy. An effective immigration system that protects the UK and allows it to flourish needs to understand the people coming into our country and whether they are acting like the good, law-abiding citizens they ought. It is as well to remember that at the heart of this amendment is the central fact that the Immigration Act 1971 was and always has been a permissive legislative instrument, in that student visas are issued with conditions, impose obligations and are in no sense an absolute civil or human right. Some 431,725 sponsored study visas were granted in the year ending June 2025. I want to make it clear that the vast majority of those individuals come, study hard and contribute to our society and economy, but there is a minority who abuse that privilege —and it is a privilege. We have some of the world’s top universities in our country, and it is not an automatic right to be here. In the 2022-23 academic year, less than a quarter of recent foreign students were on courses that the Department for Education deemed “strategically important” for the UK, such as in engineering, science, technology or healthcare, contrary to the hopes of Ministers in the previous Government when they launched the graduate visa route in 2019 and enacted it in 2021. Indeed, 69% had been on a course of only one year’s duration. The proportion of international students remaining in the UK after graduation climbed from 20% to 56% between 2021 and 2024, with only a minority of 23% studying a strategically important postgraduate course. Others studied, for instance, anarchism, television studies, recreation and leisure studies, hair and make-up, computer games, beauty therapy and alternative medicines and therapy. This may be linked to the fact that 1.9 million foreign nationals are now claiming benefits in the UK; 30% of those benefits were paid to non-working dependants and family members, which adds up to £10.1 billion in universal credit payments in 2024. If you come to this country as a student, if you get a visa and the opportunity to come to the UK, you have responsibilities in our society and under the law. If you abuse the freedoms we allow here and break the law, you will be punished, and the legitimacy of your stay in the country should be questioned. I tabled this amendment in the context of the serious public disorder linked to the Israel-Gaza conflict, and the not unreasonable accusations of two-tier policing by the Metropolitan Police and others in the way that public disorder and rampant antisemitism were treated and policed. I made the point that other jurisdictions defend the integrity of their student visa regime and take a robust stance on individuals who flout or disregard their obligations to be good, law-abiding citizens while guests in the country. The relevance of this amendment has been recently brought to further attention with the jailing of two Chinese students who fraudulently claimed more than £140,000 in train refunds. Once again, most students come here and work hard, and I have nothing but respect for them, but the information should be collected so that those who commit offences here face the consequences. Your Lordships’ House will want to know the context of why I brought this specific amendment. Regrettably, it is not a good story. For the last six months, I have been met in my Questions to Ministers with obfuscation, ignorance, stonewalling and answers to questions that I did not ask. I first asked the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, a Written Question in March as to whether the Home Office collects this information. He responded that it did not—fair enough. On 26 March, I asked His Majesty’s Government, “further to the Written Answer … why information about the removal of foreign nationals following the revocation of student visas is not collected and published”. He said: “Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics”, et cetera—but he did not answer the Question. On 30 April, I asked him “what specific factors they have taken into account in deciding not to collect and publish data on the revocation of foreign student visas”. He said, rather unhelpfully: “I refer the Rt. Hon. Lord to the Answer he received on 26 March”. Then on 8 May, trying a different tack, I asked, “further to the Written Answers by Lord Hanson of Flint on 30 April … and 25 March … what plans they have, if any, to collect data on the revocation of student visas”. He said: “Obtaining the specific information requested would involve collating and verifying information from multiple systems owned by multiple teams across the Home Office and, therefore, could only be obtained at disproportionate cost”. On 9 June, I tried again. I asked him “what discussions they have had with representatives of the higher education sector on the revocation of student visas for those foreign nationals convicted of serious criminal offences in the United Kingdom”. He said, apropos of nothing: “Any foreign national who commits serious crimes in the UK should expect to be removed from our country, regardless of the visa on which they travelled here”. So he did not answer that Question either. So, on 11 June, I asked another Question, which was a bit more up front: “whether they will now answer the question put, namely, what discussions they have had with representatives of the higher education sector on the revocation of student visas for foreign nationals convicted of serious criminal offences in the United Kingdom”. The noble Lord’s Answer was: “The Home Office keeps all aspects of the immigration system under review, including compliance and enforcement issues within the education sector, in consultation with a wide range of experts and other stakeholders”. So, he did not answer that Question either. We have clearly not had clear and concise Answers on this issue, and I have to say that the Minister, for whom I have inordinate respect from our time in the other place, really should understand that it is not acceptable and is a gross discourtesy to this House that he and his department will not answer straightforward Questions in a timely way. For the avoidance of doubt, the Government cannot abdicate the responsibility of maintaining an immigration regime for students only to higher education institutions, which have a vested interest and, indeed, a conflict of interest. The Government have a proper responsibility to police our borders and protect the system from gaming criminality and abuse. You cannot design an immigration system, you cannot make effective and wise decisions and you cannot serve the British people as well as you want to without the right information. If a disproportionately high percentage of students come from certain countries and are more predisposed to criminality, that must be known and addressed. In Committee, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, reassured us at the Dispatch Box that Immigration Rules are in place for the cancellation of entry clearance and stays, and that he was committed to reviewing the collection of statistics in order to “identify changing needs for new statistics to support public understanding”.—[Official Report, 8/9/25; col. 1178.] This is the time to make real that undertaking and that commitment to transparency. The purpose of this amendment is simply to make sure that the Government can make better-informed choices in our national interests. For that reason, I commend it to the House and hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting it. I beg to move.