Ease foreign graduate visa restrictions, business leaders urge

A future government must make it easier for foreign graduates to stay and work in Britain after their studies or the country risks losing talented people to "competitor economies", a group of business leaders has warned.

In a letter to the Financial Times, 17 signatories from across industry urge all political parties to remove overseas students from any immigration target, saying most Britons "look favourably" on university students who have come to the UK from outside the EU (in 2014 there were more than 310,000 such students).

Those supporting the call include the technology entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP advertising, and Lord Digby Jones, a former trade minister in the last Labour government. John Fallon, chief executive of Pearson, which owns the Financial Times, has also signed the letter, alongside representatives from business lobbies including the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce and London First.

The proposal to loosen visa restrictions on foreign students follows frequent criticisms from university vice-chancellors about changes to the immigration system brought in by Theresa May, home secretary, who is aiming to drive down net migration to the "tens of thousands" each year. Higher education leaders have argued that the closure of a visa route allowing all foreign graduates to work in the UK for two years after the end of their course has deterred overseas students from applying to British universities.

They have also complained that Ms May's rhetoric on international students abusing the visa system has given the impression that students from outside Europe are not welcome in the UK.

Addressing these fears, the letter argues that "many of the world's brightest minds and entrepreneurs have studied at [British] universities", adding that a third of Nobel laureates working in UK universities since 2000 were born overseas. "We do not want to lose these talented people to our competitor economies as a result of ill-thought-out immigration policies."

This week, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration is due to report on the effect that closing the automatic post-study work visa has had on universities, business and local economies. The group is expected to make several recommendations to ministers to ensure Britain does not fall behind in attracting students from abroad.

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David Cameron has stressed on repeated trade visits to India that there are no limits on the number of foreign students allowed into the UK. But he faced criticism from Delhi that his party's net migration target sent a signal that Britain was pulling up the drawbridge.

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The CBI - which did not sign the business leaders' letter - argues that a future government should not set such a target at all. Neil Carberry, the CBI's director for employment and skills, said Britain needed to harness the strengths of international students, "not prevent them from supporting the UK economy".

"The net migration target remains a blunt instrument that has never been fit for purpose and should have been scrapped long ago," Mr Carberry said.

Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, has made clear that she opposes the inclusion of students within the net migration target. She said a Labour government would work with universities, businesses and local authorities to help them attract the best talent and "compete in a global market place".

"Unlike Theresa May, we will not put economic growth or the international reputation of our world-leading universities at risk for a completely unworkable net migration target which treats all immigration the same," Ms Cooper said.

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