---

Student Visas

My Lords, I also thank the noble Earl for his Statement. I endorse what has been said by others. Visiting students add so much to the life of Britain, and students who are born here benefit from the enrichment of being with students from other cultures and other parts of the world. We also make long-term friendships. When I was chair of the British Council and I travelled abroad, it was most wonderful to meet government Ministers and business partners among people who had had such a good experience here that they remained warm in their feelings about Britain. You cannot put a price on that. I hope that we do not in any way discourage many people from coming here to study. I am president of SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. This issue is a source of concern to us because we are an arts and humanities university. We train people in very unusual languages, and many of those students go into the Diplomatic Service. The languages include Japanese, Chinese, and those of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. I remind this House of the impact in terms of income that the shift in policy on higher education will mean for an institution such as ours, and of the impact of that loss of income if the changes are made. Perhaps I may highlight a number of problems. The visa system already creates problems for us—a feeling that is probably shared by many of the university chancellors who sit in this House. Students often cannot get here for the start of a term because the visa process takes such a long time, and that is because the process has become so convoluted. My first question for the noble Earl is: will there be a fast-track system for visa applications for those who are coming to the well established universities in this country? Will there be a method that somehow does not involve the current delays and investigations? Sometimes students cannot start their degree courses at the appropriate time, and they lose out. Secondly—and I know that this is true of other universities—students who do not speak English come to us at SOAS from places such as Japan and China. They are incredibly bright and they learn the language very quickly. Not allowing anyone to come without having our language is a problem. We also run pre-entry courses for people to learn English and to acclimatise before going to other universities. Will we be prevented from offering those kinds of courses under this new regime?