Professor Dame Karen Holford, Shuyeb Muquit, Harry Anderson and Professor Alison Noble.

Q1 The Chair: I would like to welcome witnesses this morning to our committee’s evidence session looking at the impact of the UK’s visa system on science and universities in the UK. This is a topic that we have touched on several times before, but we feel that it is unfinished business and something that we would like to be able to press the Government further on.

We are very pleased to have here today, joining us virtually, Professor Dame Karen Holford, vice-chancellor at Cranfield University and Universities UK board member. We have Shuyeb Muquit, UK government affairs strategy lead at Fragomen LLP, Harry Anderson, deputy director at Universities UK International, and Professor Alison Noble, foreign secretary at the Royal Society. You are all very welcome and we are looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

I must start by making a declaration of interest as chancellor of Cranfield University.

When we asked Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State at DSIT, about science visas last November, we did not quite manage to get him to say whether he thought the UK’s visa system was putting scientists off, but he did say that the UK was “the best place in the world” for scientists, and we got the impression that he did not think that the immigration system was putting people off moving to the UK.

From other witnesses, we have heard a rather different story, and we would be very interested to hear your views on this. Shuyeb, you did a lot of work for the Royal Society on this, so would you like to kick us off?

Shuyeb Muquit: The Secretary of State is quite right, on one level, to promote and be happy with the immigration system so far as global talent visas are concerned, which is the particular visa that is targeting scientists and researchers. He was clearly backed up by two reports done by the Government themselves after speaking to those who came to the UK. Their experience is that it is a very good process. It has flexibilities. It allows them, frankly, to do what they need to do to get to the UK.

Of course, that was qualified in the context of costs, which is one of the key points that we will speak a bit more about. Cost is an Achilles heel, it seems to me, but overall the Minister was quite right to commend the UK for its access point and the immigration system.

The immigration system is part of the decision-making process that individuals consider when deciding to come to the UK. The reports highlighted that they were very much persuaded to come here because of the environment, the context, the opportunities for jobs, the connections and so forth. It is not the complete factor that determines decisions, but it is a very important feature that still needs to be looked at.

The Chair: Thank you. You have started off with a fairly positive view.

Professor Alison Noble: I totally agree. The comment was that we are “the best place in the world”. I think we are one of the best places in the world, and that means that there is a competition out there. If you look at scientists in general, science is done around the world. You are often working in international teams to do science. The best scientists have a choice of where they go, and hence science depends on people having the mobility to work effectively.

A component of that is whether someone can work where they want to go, which means that the visa is part of the choice that people make. You want to reduce barriers in this world of competition, where there are not enough STEM scientists in the world and hence you are competing. That is a very important element of why you need to look very seriously at things like visa costs and the types of visas.

The Chair: Let us come to Dame Karen Holford at Cranfield. You see it very much from a student perspective in the science and technology area. What are your thoughts on this?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: It is about creating a pipeline of talent to fill those jobs. Those are high-level science jobs. From Cranfield’s point of view, we are a postgraduate taught, postgraduate research specialist. We have seen a huge fall-off in student applications and students coming here over the last two years since the changes in the visas. I am talking about the change in the dependant visa, and also the uncertainty about the graduate route. We know that that uncertainty was settled last year, but the rhetoric around the uncertainty and the fall-off in the dependant route has led to us not being such an attractive place to come to study to prepare for that global career in science.

It is not just about attracting the best scientists from all over the world; it is about attracting them at an early stage, when they come and do their postgraduate taught or postgraduate research studies in order to prepare for that career. We are not only one of the best places to work in science in the world, but one of the best places to study science subjects in the world. It is a whole pipeline, really, of the attractiveness of the system.

For postgraduate students, the increasing costs of the visa have put them off as well. Just to illustrate that, in terms of PGT students over the last two years since the visa changes, we have seen a consecutive drop-off each year of 26%, so 47% overall.

The Chair: Over two years, is that almost 50%?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: Almost 50% in two years, yes. I visited India last year and spoke to students there. Their main concern was consistency in government policy. At that time, they were saying that the policy in the UK changes so often and prices go up, which is why they feel uncertain about applying to come to study here.

Q2 Baroness Willis of Summertown: I was going to follow up on that point. It certainly seems that policy is changing very regularly. Is it the regularity of the changes that is also putting people off? Shuyeb, would you like to comment on that?

Shuyeb Muquit: Although I was optimistic and gave you a glowing review of the Secretary of State’s observations, I also want to make clear that it very much depends on who you are asking and what benchmarks you are using when you are referring to scientists and to success.

I entirely agree that just because the global talent visa is very good, that does not necessarily mean that you have, therefore, a comprehensive facility available for the full ecosystem that you need to nurture, so I just want to qualify that.

In terms of the Labour Government’s approach to policy, we have had a period of inconsistency of messaging, it seems to me, in terms of what the direction of travel is. There seem to be two strains of conversation. You have the broader conversation about net migration, for example, and concerns about reducing net migration. In parallel to that, you have conversations about particular sectors and ambitions to be the best across different sector groups. There is inconsistency there, which, of course, impacts planning.

From a business point of view, which Fragomen mostly represents, businesses are very much concerned about what is going to happen next. One has to appreciate that they have been through a lot so far. They have had Brexit. They have had Covid. They have had very serious changes to the immigration system—unannounced, I would say—under the previous Government, which have been continued.

Very recently, with the announcement on net migration figures, we have had the potential for a new White Paper, which we are told to anticipate. It affects planning. It affects companies and businesses in terms of being strategic and being able to schedule themselves in a fashion that allows them to be secure about what the investment and the planning will be. That resonates across all aspects of the ecosystem, whether it is businesses and perhaps universities and other stakeholders.

Harry Anderson: I would agree with what my colleagues have said so far. From a university perspective, we have certainly seen that lack of policy coherence and strategy from the previous Government, which was behind some of the comments that we were hearing from Cranfield earlier about the debate around the graduate visa and what our offer was.

The previous Government had a science and technology framework, which made one reference to universities. The DfE then had an international education strategy, which made a number of references to universities but was primarily an export strategy and did not really make as many links to the research base or to the global engagement strategy that we have as a country. We then had a Home Office that did not seem to be aware of the need to issue visas for students to come here, and sought to bear down on the number of international students coming here. That was reflected in what universities saw. It was reflected in what students saw, which is behind some of the drops that we have seen.

I also think it has a knock-on impact on our perception to talent around the world, be it researchers or academics. That has been one of the key challenges that we face, and the opportunity that we have with a new Government and a spending review is to bring together that coherence and that strategy and policy, so that we can really put our best foot forward and have a strategy to grow and develop our research base and our research offer.

Q3 Viscount Stansgate: Good morning. My questions relate to the comparison between the UK and other leading science nations. In your perception, how does the UK’s visa and immigration system compare with that of other leading science nations in terms of cost, flexibility, ease of obtaining a visa and so on? How does it affect the UK’s ability to attract and retain global talent?

Shuyeb Muquit: In terms of the processing of visas and the architecture within which visas are processed, the UK is very good. The UK system is among the best in the world in terms of dealing with applications, processing them and doing so quickly. It is transparent. We know what the rules say. We do not necessarily agree with them all the time, but we at least know what needs to be satisfied.

The big Achilles heel of the system relative to other countries is the cost. We are significantly more expensive than other leading countries and, in fact, increasingly so. We will speak about the report that the Royal Society and Fragomen did to highlight the significant differences. We are not talking about differences of single-digit percentages. We are talking about four-digit differences between the UK and other leading science countries. That is clearly a fundamental difference that, as we have already heard, is potentially a factor that undermines the gateway to the UK and does not allow us to consolidate, it seems to me, the other positive elements that we have.

Professor Alison Noble: When you say cost, it is the upfront cost. If you were placing yourself in the shoes of an early-career researcher, you have offers from the UK, France, and Germany; you have gone through the whole process and you love all the places, and then you find out how much the visa costs. If you take an example, in Germany, a researcher visa cost is £172. That is 3% of what the UK cost would be for a visa.

The bulk of the cost is the health surcharge. Clearly, there is a cost to health, but it is about how that is presented, and it will be influencing people making decisions. Early-career researchers are often coming out having got a PhD or a degree. They are at the beginning of their career. They do not necessarily have much finance. This is a very large amount of money that will help make the decision about their career path, and so that is one of the concerns that we have.

Viscount Stansgate: Is it making us uncompetitive?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: I would reinforce what Alison said. In terms of making these choices of what country to move to, as we said earlier in the evidence session, it is a competitive environment to attract not only students but science workers into the UK. We go to a lot of effort to recruit people out of PhDs from all over the world to come and work for us, and they are making those decisions. When they see the cost of the visa, which includes the upfront health surcharge, all payable in one go, they are often not in a position to pay that. It is putting people off as part of the decision-making, and it is not making us feel very competitive or very welcoming.

Q4 The Chair: You have some devastating data on your master’s application numbers. Do we have collected data on the dropping numbers of applications for PhD and post-doc positions across the sector? Harry, do you know?

Harry Anderson: There is data that is broken down by level of study. If you look at where the greatest drops have come from, it is at postgraduate taught level. That is disproportionately where we have seen the drop-off. Broadly speaking, PhD and undergraduate have remained more stable. The challenge that we often have with this is around the timeliness and accessibility of the data.

We have a fantastic resource in the Higher Education Statistics Agency—HESA—but there is an 18-month to two-year time lag to that data, so it is very hard to get the real-time impact. That is what we often look to do through Universities UK’s work with our members, such as Dame Karen and others, to understand what is happening on the ground. At the moment, the data seems to be suggesting that, for PhD, things are broadly stable. It is postgraduate taught where we are seeing the pinch most felt.

The Chair: We are hearing lots of anecdotal stories, as Baroness Willis was saying, of post-doc researchers deciding not to come, but, Professor Noble, there is no compilation of that information that you know of.

Professor Alison Noble: I am not aware. If it would be helpful, we can go away and explore that. You always want to be talking to the people who did not come. Of course, your challenge here is that you do not know who they are, but we can certainly look at that, if that is helpful.

Shuyeb Muquit: It seems to me that one of the key points is that the Government and policymakers need to be armed with the relevant data for decision-making and policy-making. That is one of the other gaps. We can hypothesise about what should be good policies and the direction of travel.

One other aspect of doing that properly is having the requisite data. The UK is very good, relatively speaking, in terms of producing data compared with other countries. Whether we have the right data at the right time across all echelons is a further theme that needs to be explored and really flag‑posted.

Q5 Baroness Northover: I wonder whether one of the problems here is that universities may be reluctant to flag the decrease, lest that then has a knock-on effect in terms of students not wanting to come. Is that a problem?

Harry Anderson: Universities seem to be quite willing to let us know that they are under challenges. There is always an element of not wanting to promote those challenges. The financial challenges facing the sector are fairly well publicised now, but I do not get the sense that there is any hesitation from members to give us the information that we need to inform policymakers and colleagues such as yourselves.

Q6 Viscount Stansgate: In respect of both Shuyeb and Alison, who did this work for the Royal Society, highlighting the fact that there are these very large upfront costs and the immigration health surcharge that are taken into account, I really wanted to know whether you have any advice for us or any view that you would like to convey about whether these high costs are justified and whether there is any way to reduce them.

Shuyeb Muquit: In terms of cost, just to give a bit of granular detail, the immigration health charge is the largest proportion of the cost that is borne by entrants. It increased in February of last year by 66% for adults and 65% for children and students. Effectively, that meant that, if you are a single applicant, the health charge would cost you £5,000 up front. If you are an applicant with a partner, that would cost you £10,000. If you are an applicant with two children, it would cost you nearly £12,000.

Those are very significant upfront costs, just to contextualise it. If you look at an international comparison with countries around the world, France, I should say, is our most immediate neighbour within the European region and has gone the other way. It has reduced its upfront fees that are attributable to applicants by 92%, so you can see the swing in psychology between those two places.

In terms of reducing costs, one of the key suggestions is to introduce some degree of flexibility into how that payment is taken. The point was made that one of the key problems is not just the cost per se, but the physicality of when it is being demanded. It is demanded right at the outset of an individual’s arrival, before they have consolidated themselves or started their career.

Clearly, one of the options would be to spread the payment over the lifetime of a visa, or to reduce the cost or create further exceptions for particular categories, depending on what your strategy is in terms of who you want to attract more or who you think can bear the burden more easily than others, and perhaps also look at wider models of funding.

If the underlying purpose of the immigration health surcharge is to ensure that there are funds available for people to access health services without a bigger detriment to the wider public, there are other ways. When we were in Europe, if you were a dependent relative and came to the UK, even as an EU national, and if you had comprehensive health insurance, for example, that could also be sufficient to create security for the Government to know that you are not going to be a burden on the state, because there is a facility available.

There are ways, but, of course, that is a question of looking at the particular individuals and cohorts, and seeing what the flexibilities need to be for those particular categories.

Q7 Baroness Neuberger: You have answered most of this, but, right at the beginning, you said that the UK was one of the best places. Let us take away the upfront health surcharge and think of a new way of doing it. How competitive would we be?

Shuyeb Muquit: Very competitive.

Baroness Neuberger: Would we be among the best?

Shuyeb Muquit: We would. As I have said, some of the very important reasons that people decide to come to the UK are the pedigree, the history, the institutions, the connections that people have to the UK and its proximity to the wider world. These are factors that are beyond cost. But the world is also changing around us at the same time. We are no longer the only offer on the table, and the point has been made that all individuals—applicants, businesses, students, scientists or whatever you want to call them—have the world as their oyster to choose from.

Particularly in a world where shortages are ubiquitous, skills are also in demand. Therefore, they do not need to come to the UK, and other countries are offering a relatively better potential. In a world in which technology is developing very quickly, and where we do not know necessarily what the world will look like going forward, the traditional dynamics and the traditional world order are readjusting people’s views about where necessarily to go. We are very good, but we need to consolidate our position and make sure that we do not lose the benefits and strengths that we currently have.

Q8 Baroness Neville-Jones: Could I just ask a point of detail on what you have just said, Shuyeb? You say that, if we remove the big upfront health charge, that would make us very competitive, and there seems to be agreement on that. Is the fact that we are not allowing people to bring dependants not a factor?

Shuyeb Muquit: That is a factor as well. We are not suggesting that cost is the only factor. It is a very important and significant feature.

Baroness Neville-Jones: When you say “very competitive”, in what sense are we very competitive, if, in fact, it is not the only factor?

Shuyeb Muquit: We are very competitive in the sense that we have a good process. We have access to the excellent institutions that exist in the UK. In that sense, we have a very good background within which people think that the UK is the place to come. We are not an emerging market; we are an existing market, whereas other countries perhaps are much more emerging and, therefore, people are thinking twice before they move.

The competitive point has been impacted by recent changes to the Immigration Rules. Under the previous Government, we had the five-point plan, which was introduced in December 2023, reducing access for dependants and increasing salary thresholds. We are incrementally moving to a space where we might be losing some of that competitive advantage, but we are still relatively competitive overall.

Professor Dame Karen Holford: Connecting to the previous question about whether universities would release these data because it might make them less attractive, it is important for us to discuss this openly and honestly. The UK, through the policies of the previous Government, is wandering unsighted into a territory where we are not attractive not only to people to come post their doctoral training in other countries to work here, but also to students. We are cutting off our pipeline. We are cutting off our recruitment.

Frankly, the UK, as the best place to do science and technology, relies on that pipeline of international talent, which is very mobile. We rely on our own researchers going out, experiencing other countries and coming back. Our facilities are second to none. Students will continue to come to universities such as Cranfield, because the research that we are doing here is so cutting-edge that they want to come here.

What I am saying is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit them and increasingly difficult for them to come. As the UK, we run the risk of falling behind in our competitive advantage for science and technology because of these changes. There is a creeping effect of these changes over the years.

Q9 Lord Drayson: Could I just explore a bit further the point that Mr Muquit made in terms of the global competitive context and the changing geopolitical situation? To hear about a leading university such as Cranfield having a 50%[1] decline over two years reflects a potentially catastrophic situation within our universities. I would really like to push you a little bit on your point, which was suggesting that this was not just about the money or the cost of coming to the UK but was also about the way in which the UK is seen.

I am interested in whether universities have done any surveys of potential students’ views of the United Kingdom in the round. Clearly, the upfront cost over the health surcharge is an issue, and we get that, but is that masking a more serious and more worrying issue that, as you have suggested, where students have more choice internationally, as more nations are trying to compete in science, the UK is living off its historical strength, and that strength is waning?

Professor Alison Noble: I agree with you to a point, in the sense that you cannot just sit there and do nothing. For a long while, we have benefited from incredible strength relative to other countries. In terms of Europe and the way in which they are working as a region, we were once more closely part of that. It is fantastic that we are now an associate of Horizon. That is still new, so both partners are still learning how to manage that.

If you take science alone and forget all the rest, science is changing. Historically, it has always been changing, but at this point in time there is a lot changing. First of all, we need to recognise and respond to that as an opportunity as well. It means that you will be working with international partners in a different way. This is why the Government having an international strategy on how to interact in science and technology is very important.

Part of it, which is what we are talking about today, is about the people and the fact that you would like to ensure that we will all naturally be one of the places where top scientists would want to come to. That is very important and we need to work harder on that. Everyone is working hard on that. In the end, if you work hard at that and do your best, that is all you can do. The point that we are trying to get across is that things such as our current visa position and all this uncertainty are not helping us.

Harry Anderson: I would perhaps just come in very briefly in terms of your specific question on whether we have data on what prospective students think of us and what the key elements are in making that choice. We know that the quality of the education offer is, by and large, usually number one when students are looking at where to study. Often, we are located with a number of key competitors such as the US, Australia and Canada. It is things like the quality of the education. It is things like student safety. It is things like the post-study work offer or the graduate opportunities in those labour markets.

There are a lot of different things that students are looking at. The visa is absolutely part of that, which is why we need to continually look at it and make sure that we are being competitive, particularly in terms of those countries, because they are some of our key competitive destinations. On the whole, the fundamentals are good in the UK. The visa offer is one of the areas where we can look to be even better.

Lord Drayson: I am detecting that that is slightly different from what Mr Muquit was suggesting.

Shuyeb Muquit: We are doing well. The question is whether we can carry on doing well if we do not do anything different going forward. As our competitors around us are moving and are conscious of the market, and are gearing up to attract more people, we have to do that much more in order to maintain our equilibrium. It is a relative point. As I said, we are doing well. Whether we can carry on doing that is a function of really energising ourselves and being conscious of our wider market.

Q10 Lord Berkeley: On the subject of costs of visas and the immigration health surcharge, we have witnesses who have given us some very good information. The committee got an email from Cancer Research quite recently about the costs to institutions increasing by 44%, to nearly £700,000 a year, as a result of the previous Government’s action. In terms of the cost of visas, can you give us any idea of what it costs the Government to provide a visa for researchers? Have they ever tried to justify it, or is it just part of their campaign to keep people out? I do not know whether any of the witnesses can help me with that.

Shuyeb Muquit: In terms of the message that we have had so far from the Government when we asked them about this, they are not telling us what the figures are. They are making a point of principle that they are using the visa fees to pay for the administration and the cost that is required to do that. This is a big issue. We are unclear and there is no transparency in terms of what the figure is and whether that can be justified.

On a connected point, under a skilled worker visa, the employer is required to pay an immigration skills charge as part of the application fee. That is also a significant fee, on the same levels as the immigration health surcharge, but it is not borne by the applicant. In December, the Government confirmed that that fee has to be exclusively paid by the employer, which reduces some degree of flexibility available to the employer.

That skills charge was taken on the premise that it would be used to reinvest in training and so forth, and would act as a fund to assist businesses. There is no transparency about that either. Although these fees are there, and we can see large numbers, we do not know what the proper justification is, whether they are being used for the purpose for which they have been collected, or whether, as a proportion, they are justified, given the costs that are required to administer the system.

Harry Anderson: The Home Office’s position has always been that it wants and expects the cost of visas to cover the cost of the administrative running of the department, but, as we have heard, there is no full transparency on that. If you looked at just the cost increases that we have seen since the last time this committee explored this topic, they have increased far more quickly than the rate of inflation, and so there would probably be some challenging evidence, should that data be publicly available. It is probably worth exploring further.

Q11 The Chair: Shuyeb, you said that, if somebody comes on a skilled worker visa, the employer is paying a charge that is roughly as high as the health surcharge. Would that be the case for, say, a youngish post-doc being employed by a university, who probably was not quite prestigious enough to get a global talent visa and so was coming on a skilled worker visa, and would the university be facing this additional charge?

Shuyeb Muquit: That is exactly right. The skills charge is paid by any sponsor under the skilled worker route.

The Chair: But it is not paid under the global talent route.

Shuyeb Muquit: It is not. The point is that the global talent route is an unsponsored route. It is based on the individual credentials of the applicant. They simply bear the immigration health charge, and there is no separate cost in relation to skills. If they do not fall within that echelon, they have to apply through the skilled worker route and, therefore, the university or whoever it is will have to bear that additional cost as well.

Q12 Baroness Willis of Summertown: I declare an interest here as a principal of one of the colleges in Oxford, where we are seeing people coming through who will be going for global talent but also for the skilled worker visa. These are for teachers, basically. Related to this amount of money that is coming through, do you have data showing how much impact the cost of the skilled worker visas is having on universities?

Harry Anderson: We have some data on that. What we are seeing is that, following increases, a number of universities are reconsidering what they can offer to support staff to come over to the UK. A number of universities have previously been able to provide loans or support for individuals going through that process. Given that the costs are increasing so much, a lot of universities, for understandable reasons, given the wider financial pressures on the sector, are having to revisit that offer, but we can absolutely follow up with further data if that would be of interest.

Baroness Willis of Summertown: It would, because it is the broader impact on the university budgets that really is another hidden cost.

Q13 The Chair: It is all of our other types of research institutions as well; it is not just universities, is it?

Professor Alison Noble: It would be for small businesses as well. This whole area is very troubling, because they are also handling all the things that we have talked about, such as the constant changes in the rules. They do not have HR departments that can follow some of this, maybe learn through experience and share practice in the same way. They also will be wanting highly skilled people coming from overseas, and these costs are very large in proportion to the amounts that they can offer. That is almost a hidden one that we do not often talk about.

Q14 Baroness Neville-Jones: I think it was Dame Karen who made the comment about the territory that we are drifting off into. I want to talk a bit about the future. Do you have any sense at all that the new Government, who have now been in office for about six months, have any intention of changing visa policy in a direction that would make us more attractive, or do you get the feeling that, at the moment, things are going to go on as they are and that it will just get potentially more and more difficult for institutions?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: I do not see a change in immigration policy at the moment. I have not heard anything about it. I would urge the Government to consider reversing certainly the dependant changes. The change of tone and emphasis from the new Government is really welcome, though, and in particular Bridget Phillipson moving to confirm the continuation of the graduate route visa was absolutely essential. That caused a lot of nervousness for international students, so that was good. An acknowledgement of the pressures that the sector is facing is good.

Peter Kyle is clearly ambitious for UK science and innovation, and his vocal support and his championing of our scientists and universities is to be applauded. I also get the sense that he is listening. It is difficult for a new Government, because there are a lot of things that you need to listen to, but I do get the sense that Peter Kyle is listening and understanding, so I am optimistic that we are getting our voices heard, and hoping that there is some consideration in the background of all of these impacts on our universities.

We are still attractive both to international students for study and to international scientists for work, but we need to make sure that the Government are aware that universities have a key role in addressing the science pipeline. The UK Government should be constantly checking and adjusting how we are positioned in that global talent race, particularly in relation to the United States.

Harry Anderson: If I can come in briefly on that, it is early days for this new Government, but we immediately saw a rhetorical shift and a change from them, which has been immensely welcome. There was a palpable sense of relief when we heard from the new Secretary of State for Education that international students are and would continue to be welcome in this country. We heard from the Secretary of State for Science about the war on universities ending on day one of the of the new Government. Again, that is something that we are seeing and feeling. We know that there is going to be an immigration White Paper.

Q15 Baroness Neville-Jones: What is it going to deal with? Is it going to be legal or illegal immigration?

Harry Anderson: From what I understand, a discussion is still ongoing about the scope of that White Paper, but it is a real opportunity for the Government to reset the debate that we are having in this country on immigration. Almost the elephant in the room that we have been talking about is the obsession that we have had with net migration over recent decades. Net migration is a very important metric when it comes to understanding immigration trends, but it is not the only metric that is important.

One of the opportunities that we have through the immigration White Paper is, hopefully, to move towards a more sober, rational debate on immigration by using some of the other data that the ONS produces. We can look at net migration, of course. We can look at it over a 12-month period, as we do. We could also average that out over a three, five or 10-year period to understand what the longer-term trends are.

This is a point that was made quite regularly over recent years, given the challenges that we have had in the world in terms of Ukraine and Hong Kong. That has inevitably meant that more visas have been issued to come to the UK. That will inevitably mean that there is an increase in net migration, but I do not think that there was a single Member of Parliament or politician who was arguing against those visas being issued. We could look to average it out to understand the longer-term trends.

We could also look to place greater emphasis on the number of people who are given indefinite leave to remain or settlement as a metric of immigration policy. You hear the big headline net migration figure, but most migrants end up leaving within about an eight-year period. If you look at international students, that is certainly the case, but it is also the case if you look across other visas. We could look to place much greater emphasis on other metrics within the immigration debate, not just net migration. It is not a silver bullet, but it would help.

Baroness Neville-Jones: These are presentational issues. We need to try to get to the substance.

Harry Anderson: Other countries are much clearer in separating out what is a permanent visa and what is a temporary visa in the presentation of their statistics. That does not mean that they do not measure net migration. They do, but they present the data in a much clearer way, which helps to restore public trust and confidence in our immigration system.

Baroness Neville-Jones: Shuyeb, I rather sensed that you wanted to come in on the White Paper, because it was you who mentioned it.

Shuyeb Muquit: In terms of the broader point, we see both continuity and change in relation to immigration policy from the point of view of Labour. As soon as Labour won the election, the Home Secretary, in her first statement, confirmed that she would be maintaining the restrictions that were introduced by the Conservative Government. They also instigated various reviews by MAC of the utility of immigration by certain sectors. There is some stability in terms of the Government saying that they are going to carry on with the policies that were introduced by the previous Government, but they are also looking at reviews.

The net migration point is an interesting one, because, unlike the previous Government, the current Labour Government have said that they want to reduce net migration but have not specified a particular target, which is slightly better, I would say, because they are not tying themselves in to what might be an unachievable factor. They are also recognising that you need to have flexibility.

In the UK, we have a bizarre situation where we talk about net migration separately from the elements that constitute migration. It seems to me that there has to be a much more specific focus on the elements that make up migration, rather than speaking about net migration as an overall feature.

The timing of the announcement of the White Paper was unfortunate, because, in fact, it was on the very same afternoon as the disclosure of the adjusted net migration figures, which showed that numbers were much higher than people had anticipated. As Harry says, we hope that the White Paper will be an opportunity for the Government to recalibrate themselves and really consider the individual visas and the individual elements of net migration.

Baroness Neville-Jones: You say you hope. Is there any evidence that they want to use it in ways that you would regard as constructive?

Shuyeb Muquit: We hope, because, as I said, they have commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to review, for example, the utility of the immigration system for, at this stage, the IT, telecommunications and tech sectors. They are waiting for an analysis of that to see why the use is as it is, so they are certainly looking at data-led decision-making.

They also have the Quad, with the MAC, Skills England and the Industrial Skills Council, in what has been described as shadow form at this stage. These are organisations that are intended to work together to look at what the UK needs objectively as part of its skills strategy, and immigration will be part of that. Those are the indications.

Baroness Neville-Jones: That is one part of the picture, but are UUK and the universities anywhere in this picture?

Shuyeb Muquit: As I understand it, the universities are not part of the reviews so far.

Harry Anderson: We have been heavily involved in previous reviews that the Migration Advisory Committee has done. We are in regular engagement with Home Office officials in relation to the immigration White Paper. Some of the points that I have mentioned are ones that we would want to see reflected.

I would just go back to a point that I made at the start, which is that the policy has not changed yet, but the rhetoric has. We are seeing a much more hopeful direction of travel on this topic. The proof will be in the pudding, but we are optimistic in terms of the direction of travel.

Professor Alison Noble: The point that I was going to make was very much about not using just one metric. As a scientist, I teach my students and my research team that that only shows you one dimension of what is going on. Having a number of metrics and then putting an appropriate narrative around it is always going to be the best way forward, and the data is probably there.

Q16 Baroness Willis of Summertown: I want to pick up on coherent policy between departments. I have just been sitting here listening to all the different departments that you have been mentioning. Clearly, we have the Home Office, but we have DSIT in there. We have the Department for Education. I presume that we have the Office for Students. We also have the Department of Health. Is there coherent join-up that you see, or do we need to be thinking in a different way about how we really join this all together in order to tackle some of these issues that are clearly coming through?

Professor Alison Noble: The Home Office is driving this, and it would be helpful if other departments were part of the conversation, because they are very much affected as well. On the point that we have just been talking about in terms of metrics, a presentation across departments of the position from a UK science point of view would be very helpful as well. It places in position everything that we have been talking about in terms of how we market who we are. It allows people externally to also see the bigger picture.

Harry Anderson: I would perhaps just add that it is a positive trend of direction that we have seen a Government who are committed to missions that cut across different government departments. The universities sector sees itself as foundational. Some people see universities as big schools, but the cut-across that we have on local and regional growth, civic pride and the R&D ecosystem means that we welcome any effort that looks to join up across different government departments.

The only one that perhaps is missing is the Foreign Office. The higher education sector and our research base are fantastic elements that we need to be using in discussions abroad. The universities sector in particular is a beacon of soft power that we perhaps do not utilise enough. Any way we can look to bring together some more coherence across government departments, possibly through using the missions that the Government have announced, would be an incredibly helpful and welcome move.

Baroness Willis of Summertown: Could I just pick up on a point that you made previously, which I was going to follow up on and is very relevant here? You said that the aim of visa charges is to cover the cost of running the department. Which department is that, and who determines that cost? What are these incremental steps in cost driven by? I am just interested to know where that budget line sits and who determines that.

Harry Anderson: I may be wrong on this, but my understanding is that the cost is just covering the Home Office. The Home Office is not a department that has had year-on-year budget increases, and so my understanding is that that is a cost borne by the Home Office. It is not looking across other government departments.

Baroness Willis of Summertown: Is that true for the health element as well?

Harry Anderson: My understanding is that the health element is covered for the NHS, but I may be mistaken.

Q17 Lord Lucas: Harry, if you are running the soft power argument, why are universities so slow in signing up to Alumni UK as a way of sharing that soft power with the nation, and producing data and producing reassurance to us?

Harry Anderson: I was not aware that we are being slow on that front, so, if that is an issue, we can look to explore that. Every university will have an alumni department that is in fairly regular contact with their alumni.

Lord Lucas: If you talk about soft power, that is for us all. If you just keep it to yourselves, it is for your marketing department. It is not soft power.

Harry Anderson: We have been involved in campaigns that have looked to promote that. There is a campaign that we are really proud to be part of, called #WeAreInternational, which looks to capture some of those soft power stories. It is a good point, and I can look to take that back. Thank you for raising it.

The Chair: We would be very interested in any further information that our witnesses can provide after this session.

Q18 Baroness Northover: I declare my interest as a member of the council of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I also have an honorary position at Imperial College.

I am now looking at, as it were, the current and previous global headwinds. With Brexit and the effects on EU mobility, with President Trump’s re-election and the possible impact of his policies, both on scientists and immigration policy, and, as we have heard, with the UK’s need to grow the economy, is the UK positioned well in the global race for talent? How should the UK respond to these new developments?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: This is absolutely key. As we have said before, we are in a competitive environment, so the UK should be constantly checking how we are positioned in that global race. We should respond. I alluded to the US being something that we need to keep our eye on. We have to see what policy President Trump makes when he is inaugurated. He has indicated that he is going to give visas to scientists and students, and that he wants to attract global talent, so he is trying to make the US attractive. Equally, I am hearing anecdotally that US researchers are looking to come to Europe, so there is that balance there.

Baroness Northover: Is that EU countries, or does the UK fit into that group?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: The UK fits into that in terms of American researchers. They are looking to come to the UK and Europe—geographical Europe. We need to take every action that we can to attract students and young researchers from there. We have a role to play not only in attracting scientists, engineers and students, but also in supporting UK companies and industry to attract those as well. If we work together on that, there is a real opportunity here, but we have to come back to immigration policies.

We should be using those policies to bring students and workers to the UK to contribute to the UK economy. We have data to show how much students contribute to the economy, and how the experience that they gain here makes them much more desirable when they return to their country. It is an ideal opportunity now, given the global context, for us to work really hard to attract talent to the UK.

Baroness Northover: Do you see a difference in terms of who might wish to come from the United States? Those working on, say, climate change might feel that Europe is a better place, but others working in other areas may feel that there are more opportunities in America.

Professor Dame Karen Holford: Those working in climate change are really attracted. Harry referred to the five missions. The first two listed in the five missions are to kick-start economic growth and to make Britain a clean energy superpower. That statement says a lot. That statement about the UK being a clean energy superpower is attracting people. We are getting a lot of people interested in Cranfield. We have a large push on hydrogen, and we are seeing people attracted to that, and interest globally, so there is an opportunity.

The UK is leading the way in artificial intelligence in a lot of areas, and there is an opportunity there to really focus on what we are really good at and to attract those workers from across the world to contribute to that.

Harry Anderson: We have talked already about the opportunity here to bring a bit more coherence and strategy to the UK Government’s approach. We have talked at length about the fact that the world is changing. There is an opportunity for us there to, in a sense, put our best foot forward, and so, if we can bring together the different government missions and departments, and put a really clear, coherent offer together to attract international talent, be it scientists, students, researchers, those working in the arts and humanities and the much wider breadth of talent that is available, that is a very clear opportunity that we have.

That is also why Universities UK has put out recently what we call our blueprint for change. One of the key asks from an international side on that is to have a global strategy for universities to bring together all the different elements, government departments and opportunities that we have to create synergies, to use a slightly corporate term. That is the opportunity that we have. If Europe and other countries are doing that, we need to make sure that we are doing that in the same way.

Professor Alison Noble: We are talking about having an international science strategy, and so it is important that it is backed by long-term, cross-government support. In past years, it has been very short-term. If we can get the messaging out, that is why people will come and want to be spending time in the UK for the next period of their life, be that in five to 10 years’ time.

It does require a reset, because we have had a number of years where it has been very uncertain, and that is the message that is still out there. As foreign secretary, I travel as part of that job. I spend a lot of time in the UK as well thinking about international, but one of the things is having stable, constant messaging. Having this longer-term support is also very important.

Baroness Northover: You have been looking at the opportunities coming up. Without addressing the Brexit effect, you mentioned briefly the fact that we were not in Horizon and have only just rejoined, et cetera. Therefore, we are seeking to catch up, as it were.

Professor Alison Noble: Yes. In my role, I engage a lot with what is going on in Brussels. It is very positive at the moment. We are an associate member, so that is new for us, and it is new for everyone else. There are some other new members as well. It is quite an exciting time to understand how we now work together. It is a very positive attitude as well. We are working on that at the moment, but it is all going in the right direction.

Shuyeb Muquit: I agree with everything that has been said. The point is that everybody else around us is alert to the changing demands and the changing world order. Therefore, we have to make sure that we are also presenting ourselves as ready for business and open to receiving demand as it comes.

The analogy I was giving to Harry outside is, if you are on a rugby pitch, you are waiting for the ball to be passed to you. It could be coming from the left or the right. You have to be alert to the overall, and you have to run towards it. You have to help the ball come towards you in many ways as well. You cannot just expect the ball to just land in your lap. You have to, in some ways, present yourself as ready to receive it.

Q19 Lord Wei: It feels like competition is really hotting up for talent. You have Europe proposing Choose Europe, a programme to attract young researchers to the EU. A report author recently on EU research said that Trump’s election is a big opportunity, and we have heard that so far from this panel.

If I may play devil's advocate a little bit, is there a danger, in terms of the opportunity that has been mentioned, particularly with Musk and Trump talking about reforming their H-1B visa? They are spending a lot of money getting people into industry who have specialist backgrounds, perhaps top scientists. We might get wrong-footed. In fact, there might be a huge attraction out of academia into industry, to America, for example.

What are we going to do in response, because we might not have the money to fight back in the same way? Do you still, in light of that kind of play, feel optimistic and that there is still an opportunity?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: Lord Wei, you are absolutely right. When you put it like that, it is really difficult to compete against the really high salaries in the US and the power of that attitude. It is competitive. If we want to compete, we have to be able to attract people in various ways. Sometimes when you cannot compete on salary but you can compete on other issues, that is where the strength lies.

Lord Wei: Professor Noble, do you want to pick up on that? AI is a very hot area right now. Are you seeing, Professor Noble, ways that we as Britain can retain that talent or bring in that talent, in spite of all the salaries that people are getting in AI, for example, or other top fields?

Professor Alison Noble: I work in healthcare AI, so it is something that I know quite a lot about as well. The UK is recognised as a strength in AI. We have some very good companies. We have a very strong ecosystem. That is important. It is also important for scientists as well. This is why things such as the global talent visa are very attractive. If you can come in, and then a few years later maybe go and work in the industry for a while, go and move around, this is what entrepreneurial-type scientists want to do, including people who are pure entrepreneurs as well. We are known for having a very active and very good environment for that. That is how we attract people.

There is a concern for AI, about people going to work in industry, but if that is where research is done in AI, then universities focus on other things. I have actually been around it myself. My PhD was the last wave of AI, so I have seen that whole circle of starting off, or going through a winter and coming through again. I may have a little more of a balanced view on it. Things go in cycles, but you do not sit back when that happens. You decide as well. You work together. You have a strategy. That is the important thing that we need.

The UK is very good at starting off great things in science. We keep reminding ourselves that is what we are very good at. If we do that, it will not be a problem. We will be attracting people who also are excited about that end of science. That is exciting and something we must not lose sight of.

Shuyeb Muquit: It goes to the question of Harry’s point about strategy. You have to, as a country, realise what your strengths are. You have to create a strategy around those strengths. The fact that we are wanting to be competitive does not mean we need to be competitive in everything, because there will be other countries that do things better than us. Of course, there are other things that people do less well than us. Those are the things that we need to perhaps pick on and develop.

The broader point, of course, is therefore to have an immigration system that is agile to demand. Sometimes there is a problem of being over-prescriptive at this stage in terms of who it is that you want. It is about having a system that has an inbuilt flexibility. One of the strengths, for example, of the global talent visa, of course, is that it has a flexible definition as to the category of individuals that it can absorb. Those are the kinds of principles that should also resonate in other aspects of the immigration system. That will, of course, therefore, deal with vagaries in demand and changes in demand.

Of course, the world is such that we do not know what the world is going to look like in the next five to 10 years, with technology changes. It is a risk on one level, but of course it is a risk that one has to take, because otherwise you fall behind in any event.

Q20 Baroness Young of Old Scone: Could we look at the impact of the immigration policies on the higher education sector as a whole? There are obviously implications that Dame Karen pointed out from the dependants changes, and there are implications for the availability of courses, the financial viability of universities and the impact on research. I just wonder whether we could get some perspective on what the evidence is for each of those impacts. I should declare a couple of interests. I chair the Royal Veterinary College, and I am a past president and board member of Cranfield.

Perhaps Harry would be the best placed, in view of the work that has been done by Universities UK in preparation of the blueprint report that you described. Just give us a very brief overview of what the evidence is for the impact on higher education as a whole, including the courses issue, the university viability issue and the research issue.

Harry Anderson: We have already heard that we have seen a number of visa changes. The dependants visa change has been one of the most significant. A change that did not materialise but the previous Government signalled, in terms of the potential closure of the graduate route, also had a very detrimental impact on our attractiveness. That essentially has materialised in quite a steep drop in the number of international students who are coming to the UK.

The best data we have at the moment—individual institutions will be able to tell you their own story—is that, by and large, looking across the board, it is about a 16% drop in the number of visas that have been issued for students. That is most acutely felt at, as I mentioned previously, the postgraduate taught level. It also mirrors those countries where previously we had seen most growth. India and Nigeria, in particular, have seen quite dramatic drops. They are also the countries that disproportionately brought dependants. If we are talking about postgraduate taught, we are talking about students who are typically older, who would want to bring their families if they are moving to a different country for a number of years. The impact has been very significant.

We absolutely recognise that that is placing an enormous financial pressure on the sector. That is why we are keen to see whether that dependants policy can be reviewed, particularly in light of attempts to diversify international recruitment. I know in the past we have talked about the need to make sure that international student recruitment is diversified, so that we are not overly reliant on one or two countries. That also almost plays into the Chancellor's “securonomics” idea. We need to make sure that we are not overly reliant on one or two countries.

The impact that that is having is significant. It is very hard to translate what the impact of that 16% drop across the board is having on individual institutions, because the impact will be differential depending on the institution in question. We have already heard the impact at Cranfield, but we know that other institutions are seeing drops far below that 16% level.

If you look to try to put an average figure or impact on that, that equates to over £1 billion of tuition fee income. That has a very serious impact on the financial sustainability of the higher education sector but also, to your question, our ability to do research. Research, as I know colleagues are aware, is not fully funded. It is about 70% of the cost of research that is funded, so 30% needs to come from cross-subsidies. That cross-subsidy equates to about £5 billion. If you are losing £1 billion of that £5 billion, that is placing a very significant strain on the ability of universities to do the world-class research that we have been talking about, which is one of the fundamental strengths that we have as a country.

The final point I would make is that we are entering 2025, and there is a spending review. That is an opportunity for us to look to try to rectify this and help put universities on a more sustainable financial footing. The universities themselves are wanting to work towards that objective. At Universities UK, we have just set up a task force for transformation and efficiency. We want to be part of the solution. Policy-making is never just a guilt-free moan. We need to look at what we can do ourselves, but we need the Government’s support in putting the sector on a better financial footing. You just need to look across the news over 2024, with the number of course closures and redundancies that have been going on, to see the impact that it is having on our sector.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: We talked a bit about join-up between government departments. From your conversations with government and others, do you actually believe that there also is a countervailing policy, not explicit as of yet, that the Government want to see a reduction in overall international student numbers in this country?

Harry Anderson: I do not believe there is a government ambition or target to reduce international students—far from it. What we have seen is that the Government have said that they want to be open and welcoming to international students.

We understand that this is a Government who were elected on a pledge to reduce overall migration. That then brings the point back to what we talked about previously: it depends on what metric you are looking at; it depends on what type of migrant you are focusing on. I do not believe that this is a Government who want to see a reduction in international students—far from it. We have seen really positive and welcome engagement from this Government on attracting international students.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: You talk about the Government, but that may be some departments. Are you not worried that there might be, in line with the “cock-up rather than conspiracy” theory of government, just competing and countervailing pressures from other government departments that wreck the joint by mistake?

Harry Anderson: I can talk about what we understand and the conversations we have had with the incoming Labour Government. If you take a step back, we did see quite rapid growth in international student recruitment between 2019 and 2022. The backlog bubble from the pandemic did lead to some quite significant growth in international student numbers coming to the UK, alongside other visas too, in terms of work visas and people coming to the UK.

Both the previous and the current Governments were concerned at the pace of that growth. That is why we are very keen to work with our universities to make sure that growth is sustainable and managed, and that universities work with local partners and local stakeholders to make sure that that growth is not going to have a detrimental impact on any local communities. That is what the Government are worried about. That is what they are looking to us as a sector to demonstrate. In terms of overall ambition to attract students, I do not see any ambition to see that number go down at all.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: There has been a case report that said that if, in fact, some of those factors that you have just talked about do influence the number of international students, there would need to be a countervailing government commitment to finding ways for the reduction in income to universities being replaced by funding from some other source.

Harry Anderson: Successive Governments now have looked to fund the higher education sector from tuition fees and, until very recently, have not sought to increase that fee level. That has led to a situation where universities are increasingly needing to cross-subsidise through international fees just to remain afloat. We would probably challenge whether that is a sensible and sustainable model to pursue. This really came to a head last year, when we had the debates over the graduate route. There were very well-founded concerns that, if the Government had sought to close down the graduate route, that would have led to some universities being very close to financial challenges. That situation is not a good situation to be in.

We almost need to separate out the need to fund a higher education sector in the UK sustainably and the fact that UK universities are always going to want to attract international talent because they are international in their being; they are international in their outlook. Good research requires international collaboration. Good teaching requires international talent to come to the UK to teach. There are two separate issues. One is that we need to fund the sector sustainably. Secondly, we also need to maintain our attractiveness, not in order to fund the sector but in order to be open to international talent, just for the fact that we are an international sector.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: If I could briefly turn to Dame Karen, you have had the impact of this at the sharp end, with Cranfield’s significant proportion of taught postgraduate, with families being particularly important to that group. Do you have any comments on the other issues such as the viability of universities and the whole question of cross-subsidy of research?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: As Harry said, the policy from the previous Government had openly been for universities to do what we are good at, which is managing that cross-subsidy and using that cross-subsidy that the considerable international student fees bring in to not only cross-subsidise government research, which is not funded at full economic costing, and also undergraduate courses, which are more expensive. In terms of the range of undergraduate courses on offer at universities, the cost of those ranges considerably, but it is a standard fee.

You will see this from the number of undergraduate universities now that are considering closing chemistry and physics departments because those are the expensive courses to run. Without that international student cross-subsidy, universities have to make difficult decisions.

In terms of the rapid drop-off in postgraduate taught students, that is not our only source of income. As Harry said, often people in government think that we are a big school, but we do a lot of critical capability research for the UK. We are part of the UK’s sovereign capability in terms of research. We work with international and UK companies, government departments and so on, producing fantastic research that is not only cutting-edge but very close to industry, which can be picked up by industry, and in fact working in partnership with industry on research. There is a whole ecosystem there that is under threat because of the lack of cross-subsidy from international students.

We are working rapidly to change our business models, frankly, and that is tough.

Q21 Lord Lucas: How well are the universities and the Home Office collaborating, particularly when it comes to taught master’s, to really get an understanding of the effect, at a course level, on the economy of the UK, what these students go on to do and where they end up? For the generalist politician like me, there is a pervasive feeling that this is just a rather posher version of boat people, and that we are bringing in people when we could really educate our own in these sorts of areas. Mostly, that is due to a lack of data and information. The Home Office and the universities together ought to be able to replace that with reality, but I have not seen a sign of it yet.

The Chair: Dame Karen, do you want to talk about how you engage with the Home Office?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: On a personal level, I have not seen very much engagement with the Home Office. I am very closely engaged with DfE and DSIT on this. Universities UK is engaging with the Home Office quite closely and providing the Home Office with information around this, so I will turn to Harry for that.

Harry Anderson: Thanks very much, Karen. We have regular engagement with the Home Office across different levels as well; it is not just officials but also with the Government. One of the challenges that you alluded to is the data challenge. We were able to work quite collaboratively with the Home Office in the past. The previous Government clearly wanted to reduce net migration quite rapidly. We were saying, while the graduate route debate was going on, “Actually, the impact that you are seeking to have is already being felt, and there will be a slight lag in the data”. That is what we are seeing now in terms of what we have heard from Cranfield and what we are seeing across the sector in terms of the 16% drop.

We were able to give that real-time data from our members and our universities, to say, “Look, if you go further in terms of cutting the graduate route, you will overcorrect and oversteer, and that would have quite dramatic and serious consequences for not just universities but our economy and our society”. We work closely with the Home Office and lots of other government departments.

We also work very closely with the Office for National Statistics. They are doing some absolutely brilliant work in linking together different datasets so that you can see the visa journey and understand what migrants are doing. If you are coming on a student visa, how long are you remaining for? What are you then going on to do? How long are you staying in the country? How many of those people that first arrived on that visa end up settling in the UK? There is a lot more we can do, but there is appetite there, from the ONS, from ourselves and I hope from within the Government, to look at matching and marrying together those different datasets so that we can have a much more granular understanding of what the trends are.

Lord Lucas: That would be very nice to see. Do you think it is actually going to happen in the White Paper, or do we have to wait longer than that?

Harry Anderson: Certainly, the ONS is doing a lot of work already. We are not aware of what is going to be in the White Paper yet. I hope there will be an opportunity to look at, as we have discussed, lots of different metrics. If we look towards the direction of travel that the ONS is going in—it is encouraging the Government to take that approach—that would be a very helpful and sensible approach.

Q22 Lord Rees of Ludlow: I would like to talk about the global talent visa. We understand that this has had increasing application since it was started. Along with other business and investment visas, there were about 8,000 visas granted last year. How does this category of visa compare with the offer from other countries to attract top science? Are there any specific changes, such as expanding the eligibility criteria or making them clearer, that would improve the uptake? Maybe this is for Professor Noble; I do not know who wants to start.

Professor Alison Noble: The Royal Society is an endorsing body for the global talent visa, so I may not be the most appropriate person to start.

Shuyeb Muquit: The global talent visa, as an individual visa, is doing very well. It has the advantage of flexibility. It allows people to come in fairly quickly with dependants. You can get settlement after three or five years, depending on the particular channel under which you arrive. In fact, you can get indefinite leave to remain settlement almost spontaneously, because you can count previous periods spent in the UK in other categories. As soon as you arrive, you can get indefinite leave to remain. It is working on that level.

Of course, the point we have made consistently is about costs. On a relative comparison, it is one of the most expensive routes for scientists when compared with similar routes in other countries. Other countries, as we have said, are moving in the other direction when it comes to costs and are, of course, conscious of perhaps doing more to incentivise and attract people to come to them rather than to come to us. Again, it is about costs.

In the report that the Government had instigated, there was commentary from those who came here about some concerns about the clarity of the criteria and whether they were sufficiently broad to accommodate the widest requisite group of scientists that they were intended to attract. There has been a lot of good work done by the endorsing bodies to resolve all of that. Not least, the Royal Society, of course, is one of four endorsing bodies responsible for the administration of that visa. There is good progress being made. On that aspect, we say that the immigration system is doing relatively well, but, again, cost is the Achilles heel.

Q23 The Chair: Could it perhaps be expanded to pick up really bright, younger researchers who perhaps do not yet have that body of work that would enable an endorsing body such as the Royal Society to say yes?

Professor Alison Noble: I can also put on my academic hat for this one. I know that, in my own research group and my own research institute, the global talent visa is the one that the early-career researchers would like—this is normally postdocs but it could also be master’s level—because it opens the opportunities that they can think about for their career paths in the future, whereas the skilled worker visa, which is the other option, is specific to a research project for a finite period of time. That might also be less. They are making a choice before they come. They know that, if they want to take a position for 18 months, they could then look at something else after that.

It is just very well designed for people at that point in their career. If one thing does not work out, they will have to leave again, but they know that they can look around as well. That is one of its big attractions—as is, as you said, the fact that it is faster to be able to go through the other processes.

The Chair: As an endorsing body, do you think it is feasible to extend it to those earlier in their career? Lord Rees, do you want to come in as well?

Q24 Lord Rees of Ludlow: Do early-career applicants realise they are eligible, because the public perception may be that this is for rather ground-level people?

Professor Alison Noble: I can comment from the Royal Society’s perspective. It clearly has websites and it is open to people making inquiries. It keeps that aspect under review. It is also open to capturing that user feedback to see whether it can make recommendations in the future. It works with the other endorsing bodies: the Royal Academy of Engineering, UKRI and the British Academy. From their perspective, they can also clear up some of the misunderstandings. Overall, from people who contact them, they feel it is working well. Of course, that is not capturing the people who do not think about approaching, which may be something other people might have a comment on.

Lord Rees of Ludlow: What about short-term visits? Do people think it is too cumbersome if you are coming for, say, three or four months?

Professor Alison Noble: That is a different visa.

Shuyeb Muquit: If you are only coming for three to four months, there are other facilities under, for example, the visitor visa rules, which were expanded to accommodate research and attendance at conferences. There is an alternative route if you are coming here for a shorter period, so the system has that. The question might be whether or not the shorter facilities are in fact sufficiently flexible and broad in their description of what you can do when you are here. That, again, is something that has to be consistently viewed and looked at.

Q25 Baroness Willis of Summertown: I just wanted to investigate this a tiny bit more. I speak from personal experience of trying to get a global talent visa for people. It hits the buffers of the university HR departments, which say, “This person is not eligible. They are too junior for a global talent visa”. Where do those people sit? These are young, early-career researchers who might not have a swathe of papers and be able to go through one of these such as the Royal Society and be passed through that endorsement system. What happens to those people? In a sense, that is the next generation that we have been hearing about, yet there seems to be a gap between the skilled worker visa and the global talent visa—or is that just my individual perception of this?

Harry Anderson: If there are candidates who are not eligible for the global talent visa, the skilled worker visa, by and large, should be an option for them. The feedback from our university members is that the global talent visa works quite well and is quite effective.

Baroness Willis of Summertown: My question is more about what happens to the younger generation. I do not know if Dame Karen has a view from Cranfield, because I see you have been nodding as well.

Professor Dame Karen Holford: We talked about the work of the endorsing bodies to support people once they have applied, but you have to apply. If you are thinking about applying for a global talent visa and you look on the government website, it makes it absolutely clear. This might be where the problem that you are relating about the HR departments is, because, in terms of an eligible job offer, you have to be responsible for academic research or innovation, leadership and development, directing or leading an individual team or innovation project. By that definition, it is not an early-career researcher. The HR departments would not think that this is for an early-career researcher, nor would an early-career researcher looking at the website think that is for them.

Q26 The Chair: I am confused now. I did not think you had to have a specific job offer for a global talent visa.

Shuyeb Muquit: That is right. You do not need to have a sponsor. You are self-sponsored. It is your individual characteristics, your previous experience and your qualifications that are the foundation of the eligibility.

Professor Dame Karen Holford: You can get a fast-track endorsement if you have a job offer. That is where you are working with the HR department of the company. If you have a job offer, you get a fast-track endorsement on this. I have no experience of people who are applying without a job offer because they would not tend to contact us.

Q27 Baroness Northover: I just wanted to pursue what Lord Rees asked, which has not quite been answered, which is about how this compares with other countries. We have heard about the price but, in terms of the numbers and the percentage that you would expect, if you were to look therefore at other countries—maybe Mr Anderson could answer this—how does it compare? You are saying that, by and large, for a certain category, it is working well, with a few problems. In terms of its scale, how does it compare?

Harry Anderson: To be completely honest, I am not aware of comparisons with other types of visas in terms of the numbers. I do not know whether other colleagues would want to come in on that.

Baroness Northover: Put it like this: if we are arguing to the Government in order to move forward on the economy and so on, that is the kind of thing we need to know, surely, is it not? We are in competition with these other countries. We are hearing we are doing well, but we are actually hearing that we have this significant drop-off, and that is going to have a knock-on effect on the economy. We need to be arguing the case that actually this category of visa in France, Germany, the US, Australia, Canada, et cetera, captures this proportion of people coming in, whereas for us it only captures this proportion. That is where the percentage is really important.

Shuyeb Muquit: I agree. The number is important. The question is whether we have that number. One of the relative differences between the UK and the other countries is that we do not actually have access to the data for other countries that we necessarily have in the UK. In the UK, we focus on net migration. We have monthly and quarterly statistics that come out, but we do not necessarily have that data for other countries. That is one of the relative advantages of the UK. One of the good things about the UK is its transparency, on that level, but even then the data is not necessarily available for other countries.

We can, of course, indicate that, if you look at the trajectory of applications and you look at the figure as a proportion of the overall interest in the UK, it is a relatively small amount and we can certainly, therefore, have that as a point of advocacy in terms of highlighting that much more work can be done to enhance the demand for it.

On the point about whether people see it as an option, the point that Professor Noble made, of course, is that we always see the people who have made the application; we do not necessarily see the people who have not made the application, so we do not necessarily see or have access to that information. Certainly, on a practical level, you would go back to your website and make the issue much clearer. That does not necessarily require you to compare it with other countries. You can say that, if you are actually accepting that this is the cohort that you want, you might want to look at the way in which you have defined it on your website, which makes it look like you are actually excluding a large number of people.

There are different ways of making the point about the global talent route not being necessarily as productive as perhaps the ambition should be.

Q28 Lord Drayson: Professor Noble, as you fulfil your role as foreign secretary for the Royal Society, are you seeing universities in continental Europe facing economic sustainability issues like universities in the UK?

Professor Alison Noble: I do not normally talk directly with universities. It would be more through the national academies, et cetera. The honest answer is probably that everyone has their own issues, because they are funded in different ways. You cannot do an easy comparison.

Lord Drayson: We certainly have our economic sustainability issues here in terms of the competitive environment that you are facing. Professor Holford, do you have any sense as to whether the universities that you are competing with internationally are facing the same financial challenges as you are? Is there some data you can send to us so that we can have some international comparison?

Professor Dame Karen Holford: It is not something I have data on, but anecdotally, with the people I talk to, as Alison said, they each face their own challenges, but there are not such great challenges as there have been in the UK over the last two years, frankly.

Q29 The Chair: Harry, does UUK have any data on that?

Harry Anderson: We can absolutely share some data with the committee. It goes back to what I mentioned before. Often, our comparison points are with Canada, Australia and the US. Those are often the destinations that people are looking to go to, if not the UK.

In terms of anecdotal feedback, we perhaps went through some of the immigration debates a few years earlier. What you are seeing is that, in Australia and Canada, they are going through those debates now, so they are starting to see the pressures that we are seeing now. We are perhaps a year ahead of some other institutions in other countries. As we have heard, each country funds their higher education system differently. I would perhaps guard against some precise comparisons, but everyone is having challenges.

The Chair: We are going to have to move on, but if you have access to any data that would be useful to us, we would be very interested to see it.

Q30 Lord Borwick: On the immigration health surcharge—this is the figure of £5,175 that is paid—if you have paid your £5,175 and, after two years, you leave to get a better job in America, do you get your money back for the remaining three years?

Shuyeb Muquit: Yes, you are able to get a refund back on the element of the period that you have not utilised.

Lord Borwick: It is priced as so much per month over five years.

Shuyeb Muquit: There is not a formula that all of us have. There is a degree of discretion that also exists, but there is the option of asking for a refund for that period of the visa that you have not necessarily used.

Lord Borwick: An option of asking or an option of being paid?

Shuyeb Muquit: The first.

Lord Borwick: Is this the right figure? This is a figure that has come up from the Home Office about the costs of the Department of Health. There is an awful lot of opportunity for disagreement between the two.

Shuyeb Muquit: This is the point we made about transparency. This is the figure that applicants are being asked to pay in order for the Government to be satisfied that, if they need recourse to the health service, that is the figure that would be required.

Lord Borwick: This is the price.

Shuyeb Muquit: That is the price, but we do not actually have a breakdown and an analysis as to how that figure has been calculated.

Lord Borwick: Do you think this price is reasonable?

Shuyeb Muquit: That would depend on what the Government say is the cost in the first place.

Lord Borwick: They do not tell you what the cost is.

Shuyeb Muquit: Without telling you that, it is difficult to determine that.

Lord Borwick: It is designed to make it rather difficult to judge whether this is a good deal, because, from the Government’s point of view, in comparison with another person in the country, they get paid all the money up front. We do not have to pay five years of our tax up front to get the similar stuff. It looks as though, if it is the right figure, the Government are making a profit by being paid up front.

Shuyeb Muquit: The aggravation is not per se the actual figure. It is the point at which the demand is made for that figure, which is the upfront cost point. It is therefore putting a burden at the point at which people are less likely to be able to meet that burden.

Lord Borwick: Least likely to be able to.

Shuyeb Muquit: Least likely, yes.

Lord Borwick: That is entirely right. When the Government say charging per month would be an administrative burden, that is exactly the same administrative burden as they get with a normal citizen, is it not?

Shuyeb Muquit: A normal citizen would perhaps pay through national insurance contributions, if they are working.

Lord Borwick: Yes, through their PAYE.

Shuyeb Muquit: Yes. That is a separate point about whether in fact the immigration health charge means a double charge for individuals who come here, who are working under the skilled worker route, certainly, because they are coming here on the basis that they have a job; they are, of course, being paid PAYE.

Lord Borwick: If they get employed, they are paying twice.

Shuyeb Muquit: Yes, indeed, so that a further aggravation in relation to the perception of this being a cost that is unjustified and disproportionate to the value that you get for coming.

Lord Borwick: If they come in as a student and then they get a very good job, can they change their visa so that they get the money back?

Shuyeb Muquit: As a student, you do not have to pay the immigration health surcharge.

Lord Borwick: No, I understand that, but, if they come in on the visa and they pay the money up front and then they get a job, can they drop that first visa and remain on an employee visa?

Shuyeb Muquit: If they come here as a student, in order for them to then get a visa as an employee, they will have to complete their course. They cannot simply switch mid-course and take up employment. In theory, they would have to wait for their course to be completed and then take up employment. At that point, of course, they would be paying the immigration health charge, if they undertake a skilled worker route. The cost will be there at the point that they take advantage of the skilled worker visa or the visa that requires a health charge to be paid.

Lord Borwick: How many of these visas with the immigration health surcharge are issued every year, roughly? Are we talking about hundreds of thousands?

Shuyeb Muquit: Yes, we are talking about significant numbers. We have data for the period to the end of 2024. I can give you the stats. If you look at the period ending September 2024, which of course is the latest data, in terms of grants to main applicants across all work categories, which includes the skilled worker route, you are talking 241,719 grants.

Baroness Neville-Jones: How long a period is that?

Shuyeb Muquit: For the year ending, so it is September 2023 to September 2024. That is the period. For a year, you are getting around 250,000 people who are coming in under that particular route.

The Chair: Almost all of them are paying National Insurance as well.

Lord Borwick: Yes, almost all. By the standards of economics, this is a pretty big rip-off by the Government, is it not?

Shuyeb Muquit: This is why the entire theme of the evidence, it seems to me, is that cost is one thing but upfront cost is another. The point is about the justification for the cost and whether it is proportionate in the entirety of the experience that you receive.

The Chair: This is something that we might wish to raise with the Government.

Lord Borwick: I was wondering whether this way of looking at these figures is an argument that you use in arguing against the immigration health charge.

Harry Anderson: When you talk to university HR departments, a lot of academics feel that this is double taxation, as we have heard. Anecdotally, we have also heard that often the NHS is seen quite positively around the world. A number of applicants do not realise that they have to pay up front until the bill arrives, and then they question that and need to quite rapidly find the funding.

Students pay a discounted health surcharge, but they still pay the health surcharge. The thing that is found perhaps most frustrating or jarring about that is obviously, by and large, if we are being quite lazy in our assumptions, students are typically younger and therefore have fewer healthcare needs. Therefore, it is a cost that they very rarely need to activate or use. It causes a huge challenge as part of our immigration system. As we have heard, the upfront cost is what is most challenging and most difficult.

Lord Borwick: Indeed—and these are students who, of the demographics of Great Britain, are probably among the healthiest that you are ever going to find.

Q31 Baroness Northover: I want to ask about the skilled worker visa salary threshold. Noting the major change in terms of the increase in the salary threshold for skilled workers to £38,700 and then, shortly after that was implemented, the Government, because there was huge concern about that level, putting in an exemption for STEM PhDs whereby the salary threshold was around £31,000, which is still obviously high, I wondered whether you could set out the impact of that change on science and researchers, both in terms of the level it is at but also the differential. Perhaps I can come to you first, Professor Noble.

Professor Alison Noble: I do not actually have any access to data. Do you have access to data on this?

Harry Anderson: It was obviously a change that was not going to be implemented. That is something that we were very supportive of. There is a legitimate question about where you set the salary threshold for the skilled worker visa. The challenge we had was that it was such a steep increase, essentially overnight, as we have heard, with very little warning.

In terms of data, it is something that was changed before it came into effect, so it is hard to prove data on that front. If you look at the number of international academics who are coming to the higher education sector, we are seeing growth still there. It is not huge growth, but we are still attracting academics here. That is probably the best data we have, and we can share more on that.

What I would say, though, is that the points-based element of our immigration system is a really important part. Being able to trade points where an individual will not meet a salary threshold is really important in being able to access talent that you want to bring to the country but that may not be at the salary level that is able to be realised at that point. Having points to trade for PhDs for those in STEM disciplines is a helpful, useful mechanism that universities make use of. That is an element that we would want to preserve in our immigration system.

Professor Alison Noble: One other thing is that, being a salary threshold, it does not factor in a lot of very important science, which is team science and members of the team who are not the team leader but who come under that. That would be technicians and lab workers; it could be in AI; it is the data engineers; it is the very important people who are often behind the scenes, who are critical not only to short-term success but also to long‑term success as well. I do not have data on it, but it would be very important to be looking at whether salary alone is sufficient or whether it is the category of researcher as well, because we are going to see a lot more team science going on as well, going forward.

Professor Dame Karen Holford: I do have data. Obviously, the £38,700, which was proposed, was eye-watering and made us all fall off our seats, so it was very welcome when it was reduced to £31,000 for STEM PhDs. Our starting salary for research assistant and research associate roles, which is the entry salary for one of those people, is £28,929. That is on the university salary scale. We have a salary scale across all universities. We are having to employ people at above the minimum scale in order for them to satisfy that salary threshold.

Baroness Northover: That is really useful to know, thank you.

Q32 Lord Drayson: Can we have your policy recommendations for government, please? What would you like us to ask of Ministers regarding immigration policy? What would be the policy? If you could be talking to Ministers, what would it be that they need to do to fix this?

Shuyeb Muquit: Can I make the most obvious request, which is to try to consider more flexibility in the way in which you take costs? We are not suggesting that you do not receive costs, but you have to inbuild some flexibility in how it is received. This is the upfront cost point.

I would also suggest that they use what was the shortage occupation list, which is now called the immigration salary list, to be a bit more strategic. Historically, it has been used, of course, to provide some benefits for occupations regarded as having shortages, but perhaps that arena of policy could be used now to calibrate and reflect some sort of strategy and give benefits that are based on that strategy and ambition that the UK has. It is about using the immigration salary list a bit more specifically and looking at using it to introduce some agility and flexibility to the system.

Professor Alison Noble: It is about government departments working collaboratively together in terms of coming up with, as we have been talking about, the appropriate ways to describe immigration-related issues, as they apply to what is going on in the different departments as well, from a policy point of view, and using data from different sources to back up. It is in that space. It is a challenge, but it is an important challenge.

Harry Anderson: This probably goes beyond the realm of what the committee is asking about, but certainly the sustainable funding of the higher education system would be pretty high on UUK’s list. We have heard about a global strategy and the upfront cost element. If we are looking specifically at immigration solutions and recommendations, and if we are looking at the student element, stability is really important. We have preserved a fairly competitive offer for international students now. We need to review the dependants policy, but, broadly speaking, our offer is competitive and we need a period of stability, not a back-and-forth undermining of that offer.

On staff, it is the upfront cost that we have gone into detail on. As a third element, if we are looking at reassuring the public and restoring trust, it is about looking at a wider set of metrics when it comes to immigration policy, not just basing immigration policy on net migration, as we have also heard about today.

Professor Dame Karen Holford: I would endorse everything everybody has said, but I would really recommend, in terms of policy, that the Home Office revisits the dependants policy. The previous Government, when they introduced it suddenly, said that they would review it for certain categories of students. I would argue that we would benefit as a country from looking at that.

The Chair: Thank you very much. At that point, we formally conclude our proceedings, but I would like to thank our four witnesses very much. We have worked you very hard. It has been very interesting. You have offered to provide us with some additional data where you can, which we would very much appreciate receiving as formal evidence after this session. Thank you again very much indeed.

[1] Note from Professor Dame Karen Holford: more precisely, the figure is a 47% decline in International Students on Post graduate Masters Taught Courses over 2 years.