Education Committee
Oral evidence: The impact of exiting the European Union on higher education, HC 683
Wednesday 25 January 2017, University College London
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 25 January 2017.
Members present: Neil Carmichael (Chair); Ian Austin; Marion Fellows: Lilian Greenwood; Catherine McKinnell; Ian Mearns.
Questions 71 - 130
Witnesses
I: Dr Jo Beall, Director, Education and Society, British Council, Rosie Birchard, Director of External Relations, Erasmus Student Network UK, Sally Hunt, General Secretary, University and College Union, and Sorana Vieru, Vice-President (Higher Education), National Union of Students.
II: Professor Michael Arthur, President and Provost, University College London, Dr Gavan Conlon, Partner and Head of Education and Labour Markets, London Economics, and Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive, Universities UK.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– University and College Union
Witnesses: Dr Jo Beall, Rosie Birchard, Sally Hunt and Sorana Vieru.
Q71 Chair: Good morning. Welcome to the second session of our inquiry into the impact that Brexit might have on the university sector. It is great to be here at UCL. I want to thank the university and all of the people involved in making it possible for us to hold this session in this excellently appropriate room, and to see so many people from the university and beyond in the room today. We are immensely grateful and we think this is going to be a very useful part of our inquiry.
There are a couple of technical matters in terms of rules. One is that it is only those of us who have microphones who are allowed to speak; if you don’t have anything that looks like a microphone in front of you, you cannot contribute. That is directed at everybody in the public gallery. That includes videoing, photographs and so on. We cannot have that being done, but you will be able to enjoy recordings of this on the Parliament channel, usually at rather unusual hours—if you have a sleeping problem you will be able to sort that out by use of that channel, but today it is going to be really interesting and exciting. You should bear in mind that this is being recorded.
The purpose of this part of the inquiry is to see how Brexit will impact staff, students and others. It is also to explore what the opportunities might be in the period beyond exiting the European Union and between now and the end of the negotiation period. It is relevant to be talking about this today because, of course, you will all know that article 50 is on the agenda. That is the beginning of the actual process. Clearly, things that might be said here today and in other forums are going to be of interest to that wider question.
I am going to kick off with the observation that the Prime Minister has now announced the Government’s plan for Brexit—or has she? It may well be that there should be a White Paper. That is something you can comment on if you wish. Has what she has done so far brought clarity and reassurance to the process? Before I ask you to answer, could you say who you are and which organisation you represent, kicking off with Sally?
Sally Hunt: Thank you, Neil. I want to start by saying thank you to the Committee for giving us time to speak. My job is to speak on behalf of thousands of academics in universities throughout the UK. That is what I hope I will be able to bring to the discussion today.
In response to the Prime Minister’s speech, we felt that it was obviously trying to give some reassurance to the sector. We welcome the fact that the sector was mentioned in the speech, but the reality is that the speech has left many of the issues that our members are concerned about still very unclear, and they do not know what the future holds for them. I say that with some sorrow, because the higher education sector in this country is built on team. It is built on team in terms of the academics and the professionals who work alongside them. It is built on team in terms of UK nationals working alongside those from within the EU, and indeed on an international basis. The fact that what we heard from the Prime Minister in reality was an aspiration, rather than anything like a guarantee, left them very concerned.
We have done a lot of work within the union to make sure that we understood where our members were on the impact of Brexit. We are very clear that they say three things. Whether they are UK nationals or from the EU, they feel very unsure about the future of funding for teaching and research in the UK. Our EU national members feel very strongly that they now have to look elsewhere for long-term employment. Overall, they are very clear that the sector—alongside many others—feels that those who are from the EU have a sense of being unwelcome. We know that very strongly from the sector, and I think that is something the Prime Minister’s speech did not address.
There are very specific points within there that we have to deal with. We have to look at what is taking place in terms of EU students and how they are going to remain. We have to look at what is happening specifically in terms of EU nationals and how they are going to remain.
Chair: Sally, we are going to be doing that through the course of the session today.
Sally Hunt: I wanted to lay that out. Also, within this, we have to remember that there is a complex debate that has to take place between the nations within the UK. The impacts on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are different; the differences between universities. Overall, we are glad to see that we are on the pitch but we are very concerned. That is the message I have to bring to you from the members. They are very concerned that the policy does not seem to be being driven by higher education but by the Home Office. That is something I think we should look at.
Q72 Chair: That is a good point to end on. Sorana, could you say where you hail from and then answer the question: do you think there is enough clarity from what the Prime Minister has said so far?
Sorana Vieru: My name is Sorana Vieru. I am the NUS Vice President for Higher Education. NUS represents over 600 student unions across the UK, so I am here representing the voices of over 7 million students in the UK, many of whom are overseas and EU students. I am an EU student; I hail from Romania.
In the Prime Minister’s speech there was a lot of talk about giving out the message that Britain is a global country, versus the Brexit over global Britain. However, we need a lot more detail around how we would ensure that image is right. We are concerned that the PM’s speech said very little about the impact of Brexit on students and young people in particular, and we would welcome an indication that those groups are a priority for the Government.
There is a lot in the speech that indirectly affects the lives of students. Most specifically, she has highlighted the rights of EU nationals living in the UK as a priority, but she has made it clear that that is contingent upon the rights of UK nationals abroad. There are over 125,000 students from the EU studying in the UK. We are really concerned that this approach from the Prime Minister is turning those EU students into bargaining chips in the Brexit negotiations. Non-UK students have already faced a lot of uncertainties since the EU referendum, so we would welcome a lot more clarity and certainty around the rights of EU students and EU staff.
Q73 Chair: So your answer is basically no, because you need a lot more clarity?
Sorana Vieru: We need a lot more clarity. It was quite vague and didn’t touch on students as such.
Q74 Chair: Thank you. Jo, could you do the same, please?
Dr Beall: I am Jo Beall. I am the Director of Education and Society for the British Council. The British Council is one of the leading organisations for higher education and the promotion of the value of UK higher education abroad. As such, we are very much involved in promoting higher education and the UK’s position in that, and in attracting international students to the institutions in the UK and to transnational education hubs around the world.
We very much welcome Theresa May’s call for a global Britain. What we would emphasise is the importance of higher education and students to the success of that. We welcome the fact that she highlighted the importance of science and innovation and that the UK was to be a magnet for international talent. Alongside that, the industrial strategy has promised to invest an additional £4.7 billion in research and development by 2020. All of those are hugely positive.
Where we are concerned is that as we look for new geese to lay golden eggs, we don’t kill off the one that is currently laying golden eggs for us, and that goose is very much tied up with the European Union. Secondly, we would argue that international students are absolutely critical to our ongoing good relations with the EU and the negotiation process with member states, alongside the acknowledged and absolute need to expand our engagement through international education with the rest of the world.
Q75 Chair: Thank you very much. Rosie, do you have any bird analogies to go along with that one?
Rosie Birchard: I am Rosie Birchard. I am here on behalf of Erasmus Student Network UK. We are part of Erasmus Student Network International. It is the biggest student organisation in Europe. We support, facilitate and encourage student mobility. We have 525 local sections in 40 countries and ESN UK has 21 local sections. I am also a current final year student.
In terms of our response, we welcomed the aspiration for a global Britain but we found that there are definitely some contradictions there because, of course, for a global Britain we need global graduates. There are two ways that we do this currently. It is through opportunities for mobility for students to go abroad and to have internationalisation at home, so to have an intercultural campus and opportunities for cultural exchange at home. But we see that what was then said regarding freedom of movement, for example, and the hard Brexit approach, threatens both of those things. I think there is definitely a contradiction between the aspirations for a global Britain and what the actual impact will be.
Q76 Chair: Thank you very much. Could you all tell us what would be your priority for what should be clarified more than is currently clarified? Sally, do you want to kick off, with just one priority?
Sally Hunt: One priority for the members I represent is certainty that they are welcome to stay in their jobs in the UK.
Sorana Vieru: The freedom of movement for EU students, their right to work and their right to remain.
Q77 Chair: You would say that we need to define what a student is in the context of migration?
Sorana Vieru: The lynchpin, I guess, for all the priorities and the impact on our members is a workable immigration system that is fair and does not use international students as a political football.
Dr Beall: Our priority would be on student recruitment and a clear message that the UK is open for business to attract international talent. That in turn relates to the visa and immigration system. We would point out that only one fifth of people interviewed see students as a problem. They don’t see them as immigrants and we would recommend that they are taken out of net migration figures.
Rosie Birchard: Commitment to maintaining the Erasmus+ programme and not just partner membership.
Q78 Chair: Thank you. Obviously article 50 is about to be voted on and is likely to be passed. There will be two years of negotiation and then we will confront, basically at the end of that period, the cliff edge—or whatever other expression people might use. What transitional arrangements do you think might help to move us from the position we are in now into the new position?
Sally Hunt: That is a very leading question. I think the position of my union has to reflect what our members say, and they have overwhelmingly said that this is a very bad outcome for the sector and it is not one that they support. That said, we urgently need to have clarity about the status of EU nationals working in this country, and the sooner that can be done the better.
I act particularly for the sector—I am representing members today—but I think we have to recognise that there is an overall tone that has been coming from the Government that is affecting the whole debate and the whole sense of whether they are welcome or not. Let’s be specific about that and make sure that the people who are doing the work in our universities are removed from the immigration statistics, and the same has to be applied for students. That is something that I would emphasise as strongly as possible and as quickly as possible.
It is also about clarity on what will replace funding currently coming from Horizon 2020, funding that is coming through from Erasmus, funding that is long term and not just dependent on the guarantees that are already there. The sooner we have language that allows planning to take place, the better it will be for the sector. That has to be emphasised over and over again: clarity for staff, clarity for students and clarity for their purpose, which is research and teaching. If we can make sure that we have that, and we have that early, then we are doing something to maintain the sector.
Q79 Chair: That is very helpful. We are going to talk about Erasmus and other such matters shortly, starting with Ian. Jo, from the vantage point of the British Council, what would you like to see happen to reach out to the global education economies that you were referring to before?
Dr Beall: It is vital that we engage with emerging markets. They are absolutely investing in their higher education and research and development sectors. The UK is already very engaged through partnership arrangements and we should support those. There are issues around how we engage in non-ODA eligible countries. Erasmus has been really important in that.
Going forward, a big focus has to be on how we move, in addition to the really great stuff we are doing with the Newton Fund, the Global Research Challenge Fund, the work that the British Council is doing, for example 80,000 students to China on the UK-China exchange, 25,000 students to India on the same. We have lots to build on and we need to build on those. At the same time, we need to think about how we put in place continuing higher education and research partnerships with countries that are not ODA eligible. There is no obvious funding for that at the moment and they are our key research partners.
Q80 Chair: Good. Rosie, do you have any thoughts on transitional arrangements?
Rosie Birchard: We would like to see some more security for funding for mobility. It is secured for the next couple of years, but beyond that prospective students who are considering what degrees they would like to go into—for example, if they are thinking about a language degree that has a mandatory requirement for mobility—would want to know that that would be secure in the future as well.
Sorana Vieru: I echo the panellists’ thoughts. I would like to add the need for certainty around what rights and access to student support students would have for the duration of their course. Within the transitional period, students should know when they start the course exactly what they are entitled to until the completion of the course.
Chair: Thank you all for those full answers. You have strayed into some of the territories that we are going to explore in more detail. The first one is Erasmus and that is going to be led by Ian.
Q81 Ian Mearns: Good morning, everyone. The Government have said that the UK should continue to pay into some EU programmes. Should we make Erasmus+ a priority?
Sally Hunt: I was in Cambridge last week with a very large group of linguists. They asked me to come to talk to them because of the real concern they have about the long-term future of languages within the UK. What is interesting is that they start from a point where they say that the damage to the ability that we have within this country to have proficient languages, which can feed into the whole areas of the economy that we need, has been twofold. It started with domestic policy that removed the necessity for someone to do it to GCSE level. That has had a real impact and that is something we have to bear in mind. The numbers that have been coming into the languages within higher education have gone down, because the numbers of people who are studying French, German, Spanish and other languages have also gone down. You have that as your starting point and you have to be aware of that. It is quite fragile in terms of where we sit in higher education.
With Erasmus, what they have all said to me, and what came out particularly when I was talking to them directly, was two things. The staff themselves feel very uncomfortable about their position. That is something that they are—by necessity I think—reflecting to their students. They don’t know what their position is going to be. They know that within their departments it is incredibly important that you have this mixture of both UK nationals and those from the EU. What they have said to me is, “I start from feeling like a bargaining chip, which is not a comfortable place to be, and then I have to talk to my students about the impact of removing Erasmus.” They are clear that fundamentally that will change the nature of a degree course within the UK. It will impact massively on students. They are saying this from the feedback from their students, not just their own feelings.
Their students say that when they are abroad they are able to understand far better the culture and the economy of the country in which they are studying. They are then very clearly able to prepare themselves, in terms of language and in terms of iteration, in a way that they simply cannot do if they study it within the UK. They are very clear that that will make a huge difference in the quality of the course that they are able to undertake. Both students and staff are saying that this is something that you really do have to think about as a priority.
The question that we will have to ask the Government is whether they want to maintain it as Erasmus as is—that is, EU-focused—or to talk about this in a more global sense. I can see that that is a debate that needs to happen in terms of how that fits within how this strategy is being built, but not at the expense of what is an incredibly successful and positive contributor to the culture and the economy of our country, and the soft skills that we bring as a sector to our economy because of the relationships we build with UK students and those who come from the EU. That is something that has to be celebrated and has to be defended very hard by those who have an interest in it and those who want to support them.
Q82 Ian Mearns: So that’s a yes, then?
Sally Hunt: That is a very firm yes on behalf of a lot of people who wanted to make sure that you heard that message. They are not bargaining chips; they are real people.
Dr Beall: Erasmus+ is an incredibly important programme, so my answer would be that, yes we have to protect Erasmus for a number of reasons: 250,000 people across the UK benefit; 16,000 higher education students; 8,500 TVET—technical and vocational education and training—students. As skills, TVET is important to the industrial strategy. We have to recognise what Erasmus brings there. Some 46% of the students who go on Erasmus are modern language students. If we are going to be competitive globally, we have to speak foreign languages.
You may well ask, “What about Mandarin?” Within the Erasmus programme we already have global mobility through the International Credit Mobility scheme, but we could do better. As we think about moving beyond Erasmus in the context of a global Britain, we need to think about that, but within Erasmus we get a lot of bang for our buck. In addition, we benefit from the relationships we build with member states. That is going to be very critical in the process of a long and protracted negotiation on Brexit.
The last thing I would say is that our research at the British Council shows that international higher education is becoming increasingly regionalised. We are losing market share from south-east Asian students who are going to Australia, Malaysia and so on. In a context where the US is capitalising on Latin America, and Australia on south-east Asia, we would be mad to lose our regional market and our regional connections, and Erasmus is really important in building those.
Sorana Vieru: More than ever after Brexit we will need to protect student mobility. As we look at developing new partnerships with countries outside the European Union to maintain our competitiveness, it is even more important that our universities help to develop internationally literate graduates. There is a lot of evidence and research showing that mobile students, as opposed to non-mobile students, develop better skills, which are valued better by employers, through their experiences of working and studying in a foreign country as well as interacting with foreign students in their home country.
Q83 Ian Mearns: Rosie, I guess you would answer yes as well?
Rosie Birchard: Yes, absolutely. I hope we can all agree that mobility opportunities are an excellent thing to bring to our students, but beyond that it is important that they are actually from the Erasmus+ programme. This year is the 30th anniversary of Erasmus+. This is not a time to take a step backwards; it is a time to solidify it and try to improve it. The most important thing with regard to Erasmus+ is that it offers funding support for students. While I am not saying that we shouldn’t look to develop new partnerships outwith the European higher education area, there is currently no standardised funding whatsoever for these kinds of mobility opportunities. If we are looking to build a fairer Britain, how on earth can we do that if there are financial barriers to mobility? Erasmus+ really removes those financial barriers, or it certainly decreases them.
Q84 Ian Mearns: I know that these are complicated issues but we do need to have shorter answers if at all possible. If the United Kingdom loses access to Erasmus+, should the Government develop a different or new programme of their own? What would you like them to deliver?
Sally Hunt: You cannot really say “Yes” to that, can you? It is a two-part question. I was going to just say yes, Ian.
Ian Mearns: It is predicated on the possibility of the United Kingdom losing access to Erasmus+.
Sally Hunt: We should fight incredibly hard to maintain Erasmus, because it is a success story. In answer to your question, yes they need to develop a parallel programme that enables students to know that, as part of a degree programme, they can have access to a year abroad that is not based on their ability to pay. They have to develop a programme that recognises that language teaching in this country relies on academics from overseas being part of the academic community here and that is very important to have alongside that.
If we are to look at broadening this beyond Erasmus, I would simply say to start from the base that we have a very successful programme here, recognise the languages of economics, which are German, Mandarin and Latin American languages that are coming through, and understand that we have to shift but don’t do it at the expense of what we have. Overall, when staff are asking them, the one message that we get from our students is, “It will make the study of a language degree in this country almost redundant if I do not have a year abroad.” I think they have to recognise that this is a key benefit for the country.
Q85 Ian Mearns: What would your priority be, Jo?
Dr Beall: Taking Erasmus as it stands, there are two ways in which we could engage. One is the Norwegian model, where we would pay to participate. The other would be the Swiss model, which is to put in place an alternative. If we do that then we have to recognise that it is going to cost us a lot more, so we would be paying for both inbound and outbound students.
A second issue we have to take into account, in any replacement for Erasmus, is what happens to students who are less able to travel abroad. Where Erasmus is very good on the widening participation and access issue, how could we guarantee that? For students who are less able to travel they are more likely to want to go to proximate destinations than far-flung destinations. All of that has to be taken into account.
Having said that, we have a lot to build on to extend the work we are doing in China, India and other countries around international student mobility.
Rosie Birchard: For a start, as I said, there is partner membership of Erasmus+, which is not foolproof on membership, so it is unlikely we would not have any access but this partner membership does come with a significant impact. It is constraining. I have spoken to the version of me—education officer—in ESN countries that are partner members, and they have told us that this limits people's opportunities, so we need to pursue maintaining our programme membership at all costs.
It would be a terrible situation if we didn’t have any access at all to Erasmus+, so yes of course we would need to replace it in some way, and it has to be a funded opportunity. I would like to see it within a broader framework of just trying to encourage students to engage with international admission in general, so short-term ability for those who are unable to go on long-term mobility opportunities or encouraging students to participate in integration events, for example. There is a great pilot scheme where students can earn a non-academic award for engagement with the international community. I think that is really important.
Sorana Vieru: I would reiterate the comments made by my colleagues and support them. We need to think more holistically about this in terms of how the negotiations and the deals that we get support the other agendas the Government have right now in higher education, such as supporting the widening of participation and supporting plugging the skills gap and how each student, regardless of their ability to pay, should have access to all the opportunities that they could have, both within the UK and globally, so that we don’t miss out as a result of Brexit.
Q86 Ian Mearns: Is there anything you think Brexit can offer in order to give us an opportunity to create a more global student mobility programme? Jo, you have already talked about some of the potential constraints because of what Australia and the United States are doing. Is there an upside from your perspective?
Dr Beall: There is an upside if we recognise that higher education is the fifth largest service economy and export. If we recognise that and it becomes absolutely critical to our industrial strategy and our trade negotiations, and in our trade negotiations we respect the fact that people want to engage with us around higher education and research but they want to do so in full assurance that we trade—as they said in India recently when Prime Minister May was there, “We want to trade with you but we also want you to have our children in your universities”, and we have to take that on board.
Ian Mearns: Does it provide a more global market for us, Sally?
Sally Hunt: No, this is a backward step. I take on board the points that Jo is making, but if we look at what that example of India tells us, it tells us that what has been taking place is a question mark about how we do welcome people, those we are trying to encourage to come here and study and collaborate, because the numbers have been going down steadily. To offset what is going to be taken away from Europe, our closest neighbours and our trading partners, is going to take a huge amount.
If we look at what that might mean, as an upside one might say that the university sectors might want to consider saying that all students will be charged the fees, for example, that international students are. There is a real debate as to whether that is a plus point. Personally, I and the people I represent think it is not, but you can argue that point. But overall, I cannot see how this can be good.
Chair: We have the theme there well etched out. We are a little pressed for time and we want to make sure we get all our questions and all your answers out. We are going to move on to Lilian.
Q87 Lilian Greenwood: We are sitting in a room where it says “London’s Global University”. I know from my own city of Nottingham the importance of having two universities and, Rosie, you have talked about internationalised campuses. How important is the presence of EU and international students at universities in the UK, and how does their presence benefit UK students? Maybe if we start with the voice of UK students, Sorana.
Sorana Vieru: We pride ourselves on building diverse academic communities where we change the world view; we challenge our perspectives and look to listen to what other people have to say. That itself, interacting with people from different countries with a different cultural background, will enrich your university experience and help you develop different views.
The benefit is also financial, so EU students bring over £1.13 billion in tuition fees and over £2.5 billion in off-campus benefits as well. They do bring a net benefit to the country as well as the soft power that they carry around with them. We also know that, by interacting with British communities and EU students, graduates are more likely to develop business partnerships with clients from different countries. There is a benefit to the business outlook that home students develop, as well as the campus and atmosphere, being taught by people who are from different countries as well as studying alongside them.
Dr Beall: The impact of international students is enormous. Reiterating very briefly the fact that it is worth £17.5 billion to our economy and 75% of that is from students studying in the UK. In addition to the economic benefits, there are huge benefits from students working in diverse classrooms and contexts. They become more employable globally and more competitive in the global marketplace.
The public good advantage of diverse international classrooms is huge. We are going to have to share the stewardship of a very fragile planet. If people already learn to work together in classrooms, they are going to work better together.
The last thing I would say—wouldn’t I, from the British Council—is that the soft power benefits of international students are huge. One in four countries globally have leaders educated in the UK. That is almost impossible to measure in terms of the benefits it brings to a small country that punches way above its weight in terms of research and education.
Q88 Lilian Greenwood: I notice that the British Council wrote specifically that if we had fewer international and EU students here it would diminish that soft power. Is there any more you want to say about that specific issue?
Dr Beall: Yes. We have recently commissioned a longitudinal study called “As Others See Us”, where we look at what young people think of the UK between the ages of 18 and 34, and we do this periodically. Our results for 2016 came in the week before the referendum and we sat there with our head in our hands saying, “This is going to be worthless.”
We repeated the study three months later and found very little difference in the rest of the world in terms of what people thought of the UK. Young people either did not know about us or care about us, or they still thought we were great. But there was a huge difference in the respondents from the EU: a 30% reduction in those who thought we were open, tolerant and welcoming, and a big reduction in the number of those who wanted to come and study here in the future, or even visit, so the impact on the European Union of the referendum among young people is huge and we do have to fight back to rectify that.
Q89 Lilian Greenwood: Rosie, can I come to you on the importance of international students in the UK and the impact on UK students?
Rosie Birchard: Absolutely. It is hugely important. Not everybody is going to be able to participate in long-term mobility, so what we can have on campuses is internationalisation at home and this is of key importance. If we don’t have campuses with an international environment then local students are seriously missing out. This is something that students benefit from. You are exposed to people with different perspectives and points of views and you have a more analytical view on how things are done here, for example. I think it is really important.
Q90 Lilian Greenwood: Has your organisation done anything to try to collate or evidence some of the things that you have just talked about, using the students who have been through the programme or are interested in it?
Rosie Birchard: For example, one of our major slogans is “Once Erasmus, always Erasmus.” I know we are not talking about Erasmus here, but the idea is that once you are exposed to a global environment, then that is it, your perspective has totally shifted. We do an ESN survey each year and every time it tells us that this is important. We saw especially in the last one that exchange students were living more with local students, so that is something important. We can see the integration process there.
Sally Hunt: I will be very quick, because the points have been well made. The only thing I want to add is the distinction between undergraduate and postgraduate because, as you look at the postgraduate population, it is a higher proportion that comes from the European Union. That does have a feed through in what happens to those who then go on to teach within the university sector within the UK, and those who go on to do collaborative research. We have to think very carefully about that, because it has an impact on our ability in the long term to have a sector that is effective and working.
I have one more point. HEPI did a good analysis of how UK students viewed working and studying alongside those from abroad. Overwhelmingly, they said it was a very positive point.
Q91 Lilian Greenwood: You have been very clear about the benefits of having international students studying in the UK. What changes to the Government’s immigration policy could help offset some of the risks of Brexit to student recruitment? Perhaps I will start with Rosie.
Rosie Birchard: Obviously for us we are talking a lot about Erasmus for this purpose but, in terms of immigration, most of all we would want international students not to be counted in immigration figures.
Dr Beall: I would echo that. The post-study work visa is something we need to think about. That is where our greatest competition is coming from in terms of the US, Canada and Australia, our largest competitors for international students. What we find is that those countries recoup in taxes what they spend on the education of those students. There is an economic benefit in allowing students to work in a country. They pay off their loans, they become good citizens, and they have good relationships with the country that they don’t necessarily stay in forever in a global marketplace. They become professionals who are internationally mobile.
Sorana Vieru: I cannot stress this enough. We need to remove international students from immigration targets and look at guaranteeing the post-study work visa. We need to have a further discussion about the impact of Brexit on EU recruitment and what that will mean for the visa scheme that will be applied to EU nationals once we leave, because it can be perceived as quite burdensome and off-putting to these people. Already we are seeing the UK becoming second to Canada as the most attractive destination for EU students. This was released by Times Higher Education a few weeks ago.
A very recent NUS poll has shown that 50.7% of non-EU overseas students surveyed think that the UK Government are either not welcoming or not at all welcoming towards international students, so we need to be careful about how those perceptions, which overseas students currently have, will shift to EU students depending on them changing to a full visa scheme because of Brexit. We would urge against making them subject to a full visa scheme.
Sally Hunt: I absolutely agree with all of that, particularly the point about removing students from immigration figures. Also, I would keep coming back to this point: postgrads. Keep remembering postgrads and remember what that means in terms of them being part of the teaching population that we rely upon. They have to maintain their ability to have freedom of movement and that is something we have to think about.
Q92 Lilian Greenwood: You have all been clear about wanting to remove students from the immigration figures. Do you think there is anything else the Government should do to provide more clarity about its international student policy, given the risks that Brexit poses?
Chair: Quick answers please because we are up against the time.
Lilian Greenwood: Yes. Sally, shall we start with you and work our way down?
Sally Hunt: A quick answer: they need to underpin the understanding that students have about what UK higher education is going to be part of. That means the investment in STEM subjects and clarifying that. That goes back to the whole area of uncertainty around Horizon 2020. It goes back to understanding and—as Sorana pointed out—what you are going to pay at the beginning and knowing that that is what you are going to be doing at the end.
The wider Government rhetoric has to recognise that it is giving a tone of lack of welcome. There is a sense among the people I represent that it is the Home Office that are driving this, and that needs to be faced up to. That needs to be dealt with by Government if what they are trying to do is celebrate and support the sector and make students welcome.
Q93 Lilian Greenwood: A key point of clarity you think they need, Sorana.
Sorana Vieru: I completely agree with Sally on the above. I would also add that we have been talking a lot about students coming here, so entrance to higher education, but we need a lot more clarity around the benefits for residents in the UK that have been here for a number of years—three to five years also—and their rights for access to student support in the United Kingdom once they have been here for a while.
Dr Beall: It is about clarity of message. We are dealing with a highly literate population—people engaged in higher education. They are media savvy and perceptions count. Adding one layer upon another layer upon another layer of clarity on immigration and visas has done us harm. We need one clear message and it has to go beyond, “We are open and welcoming for business.” It has to say, “We want students here and this is what we will provide for them.”
Lilian Greenwood: Rosie, you have the last word.
Rosie Birchard: Yes. As I have already said, we need clarity about study abroad and mobility opportunities. Obviously, the students that are the most mobile are the ones that are already mobile, so that is international EU students who want to study abroad as part of their degree in the UK, so it is making the UK a much less attractive destination, which is obviously evidenced by the figures you have already cited. This is really important. We need to have secure study abroad opportunities that are funded.
Chair: Thank you, Lilian. We are going to go over to Catherine on the impact on staff and collaboration, followed by Ian.
Q94 Catherine McKinnell: The Government have said in their most recent speech on the issue that they want to guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK as soon as possible. Do you think this statement has been enough to give some reassurance for university staff in terms of their future?
Sally Hunt: Neil has asked for a short answer: emphatically not. Do you want me to develop that, because I can?
Catherine McKinnell: Yes, please.
Sally Hunt: The survey that we undertook was the first one that has been done within the sector, talking to members within the sector. It was across the piece, with our lecturers, our professors and the academic team—the senior administrators. They have said overwhelmingly that they do not feel that they have certainty, that they do not feel that they have a welcome. That is triggering a change in their thinking in terms of whether they stay here or not. That is something that I cannot emphasise enough.
There is a real shift from feeling that this is where they and their families were going to base their lives and their careers to one now where they are looking abroad, and there are specific reasons for that. They are telling me—and I have a lot of this anecdotally, because I hear from them both individually and when I do meetings—that there is a real sense that they are being encouraged not to put their names as part of collaborative applications on EU-funded programmes for research, for example. That is starting to make them feel that they need to move elsewhere if they are going to maintain their academic career.
Q95 Catherine McKinnell: That is from their EU counterparts?
Sally Hunt: Yes. This isn’t a negative. This is a practical look at what is going to be best in terms of where you can get the best achievement in terms of funding, and it is happening. That is taking place right under our noses. When Jo says you have to go beyond the statement, “You are welcome,” I could not agree more. What you have to say is, “You are welcome, and we will guarantee funding and security of employment,” and we will make sure that the students that you want to encourage into whatever programme you are teaching feel welcome. There has to be greater clarity, and much more quickly than it is happening now.
Q96 Catherine McKinnell: Jo, do you have anything to add to that?
Dr Beall: Yes. We need clarity on how we are going to underwrite the funding currently coming from Horizon 2020, including with assurances that this is not going to come from existing funds, but from new money, because people are sensitive about that. We need clarity on how the Government are going to honour structural investment fund projects, and we need guarantees for academic staff in the system that they are going to remain in the system and be welcome.
Q97 Catherine McKinnell: There is no clarity at the moment about exactly what “as soon as possible” means. Could you elaborate on what you feel are the impacts, if this is not resolved quickly, and what you deem to be the timeframe that this needs to be clarified in?
Dr Beall: One immediate impact—this is anecdotal—is that universities are not attracting international staff and people are pulling out. People are pulling out of research bids. The impact is that we are going to lose our reputation as a research-intensive higher education sector that is valued all over the world. We punch hugely above our weight. For example, with 0.9% of the population, we produce 15.9% of the most highly cited articles in the world. Most of those are co-authored and largely co-authored internationally. We don’t want to lose that status and that reputation.
Q98 Catherine McKinnell: What sort of timeframe are we talking about to move forward: months, or years?
Dr Beall: For me it is now. It is immediate. We have to give the guarantees now because already there is a degree of self-censorship. UK academics are not even putting in for Horizon 2020 bids and research bids in the EU because they think they are not going to get it. In our “As Others See Us” survey, 30% of the people we surveyed around the world thought we had already left the European Union. We have to start behaving as if we are still there, still entitled to the money that we put in, and have very immediate plans in place that are well-communicated for how we are going to fund these things afterwards.
Sally Hunt: I want to add one point. That has been eloquently said, but we also get more in terms of our proportion on EU funding of grants than other countries. It is worth you being aware that EU-funded projects tend to be more evenly spread than UK Government-funded projects. Unless we think very closely about this, that might soon end up with cold spots that will happen quite quickly in different parts of the university sector. It is not an even hit. It will have a higher hit in different places. But I could not agree more. It has to be immediate. The impact is already happening, both in terms of collaboration but also in terms of choices of career. It is now that we need that message strongly.
Q99 Catherine McKinnell: I have looked at the UCU survey, which does give a helpful indication. What I would be interested to know is this: do you think the trends that you are seeing within that survey are improved or not affected by the speech that the Prime Minister gave on Tuesday? Has enough been done to reassure enough people at this stage or do you need more in terms of—
Sally Hunt: I said at the beginning that the speech is a great aspiration but it has no clarity in it. I aspire to getting a 10% pay rise every year and people—like Michael Arthur—aspire to me not getting that, but somewhere we meet in the middle. A negotiation needs to take place and it needs to take place now. What has happened is that the Prime Minister has effectively said that it is down to Europe: “I would love to but they are not playing with me.” Well, I am not surprised. What she needs to say is, “I can make some unilateral statements and I can guarantee this.” She could do that, but she has chosen not to, so I have to say my postbag hasn’t changed markedly.
Chair: Message received loud and clear. Ian, you are going to finish off the session.
Q100 Ian Austin: Yes. It is obviously a pretty pessimistic and depressing picture that has been painted here today. Sally, can you see any benefits or any possibility that the UK might be able to attract academic staff from elsewhere in the world as a result of this process, perhaps from Canada or the US?
Sally Hunt: As a result of this process, we are going to have to. I have enough confidence in the people I represent to know that they will work very hard to maintain the reputation and the quality we have, which is global and is recognised as such. I am sorry if it is a negative message, Ian, but that is what the members I represent are telling me. They do not see this as a positive. They did not make a distinction between wanting to be global or wanting to be members of the EU; they saw this as part and parcel of the same thing.
It is not a case of saying that you replace that fantastic academic from Germany or from Italy with the one from Canada. The point is that the university system in this country has all of those within the community now. That is something we have to maintain and push forward. If you look at some of the examples we have outside—Canada, Australia, America—and you look closely at what the Indian Prime Minister said to you, that tells you the place we are at for the start of a negotiation and a discussion with other countries about where the UK system sits. It is not a good place to be.
We have taken away the certainty. We have taken away the contacts. We have taken away the links that we had within Europe through this process and sent that message out to them, and we have not put anything else in place. The people I represent are being asked to pay the price for that. I am very angry on their behalf, because this is doing damage to them and they did not ask for it.
Q101 Ian Austin: I understand that, but the difficulty is that the decision has been made and, whether people here like it or not, a large part of this was about immigration. Most people who voted to leave would say that there is a difference between the ability of students to come here, because they can see very clearly the direct benefit that they bring to the economy in terms of paying to be here to study, and academics that are coming here to work. Lots of people who voted to leave would not distinguish between people who are coming to work in the higher education sector and people who are coming to work in other sectors. That is the sort of difficulty of the argument that you are presenting. In a sense, these are arguments that should have been voiced; this was an argument for the referendum campaign, wasn’t it?
Sally Hunt: Are you saying that I am responsible for us not winning that vote? I take on board many things, but—
Ian Austin: Of course I’m not.
Sally Hunt: I recognise your point.
Ian Austin: The point I am trying to make is that the decision has been made and we have to make the most of it. If the argument is that—as I understand it from what has been said today—the UK benefits from having academics from Europe because we can attract the best academics from a wider pool than we could if we were just recruiting from the UK, surely that is true for attracting the best academics from an even wider pool across the world as a whole. Isn’t there something to be said for that?
Sally Hunt: It could be, but my point was that what we are being asked to do is substitute one for the other and I don’t accept that point. I don’t accept that that is good for the sector I represent or for the people within it. On the point that you are making about there not being a distinction seen between an academic coming to work in this country or a student, frankly I think the Government encouraged the view. The idea that people were coming into this country was very much linked to people within this country having something taken away from them, meaning jobs. I think it has to be said and said out loud. I don’t mind the fact that, at this point in time I might be making an argument, on behalf of the people I represent, that is not necessarily popular, but I have to say it.
In my view and that of my union, Brexit has not been a positive for the sector in which they work. What we have to do now is everything we can to give certainty to the sector, both the EU colleagues who work within the sector now and need to in future and the students who want to study both now and in future, and that has to be the EU as well as elsewhere. You cannot substitute one for the other. It does not work.
Q102 Ian Mearns: Jo, there has been discussion of a British equivalent of the German Academic Exchange Service, and it has been suggested that the British Council might be in a position to deliver something like that. What is your view?
Dr Beall: In the British Council we have heard this argument made, and it is an interesting argument. I would say two things. First, DAAD has an operating budget of €471 million and an administrative budget of €24 million, which is about the same as a pound now, isn’t it? If the British Council had that budget, we could do a great job with it. However, I am not sure that is the way to go. We are much more agile. We have a mixed economy model. We pay for a lot of the services that we deliver to the higher education sector, through our mixed economy model, and we have organisations—such as Nuffic and others in Europe—coming to us to say, “We cannot afford Federal Governments funding us to the degree that DAAD is funding. How can we learn from you?”
In this austerity-driven world, I would be reluctant to give up a hard-won mixed economy model, which delivers a huge amount of money for the sector, for something that goes back to quite an old-fashioned model of top-down Government funding. Around 18% comes from the EU, but the rest comes from the German Federal Government.
Q103 Lilian Greenwood: When we were in Oxford, Professor Buchan, head of Brexit strategy at Oxford University, said that he felt in relation to English-speaking medicine that was a bit of a casualty of joining Europe and there was less easy flow of clinicians and clinician science from Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. Jo, I am not inviting you to say that he was wrong, but is that something that you recognise, or do you think that is a very limited view?
Dr Beall: It is an interesting view and I would not want to challenge it. What I would say—this relates to your earlier question about extending from Europe to a global marketplace for intellectual labour—is that a recent article in Nature looked at the intellectual diaspora. The biggest sending country is India, so you have Indian academics, engineers and philosophers—you name it—around the world. Our job is to attract them. So, whether it is Europeans, Canadians or Indians, if we want this diverse, mixed intellectual labour force that is going to put us at the forefront of knowledge economies, we have to attract them. At the moment, unless we act really quickly to make people feel welcome wherever they are from, we are not going to get them into our universities and research institutes.
Chair: Thank you very much indeed for your very full and forceful answers at times.
Witnesses: Professor Michael Arthur, Dr Gavan Conlon and Nicola Dandridge.
Q104 Chair: Welcome to the second session of today’s inquiry. Basically you will see where we are headed: what are the implications of Brexit, what are the opportunities of Brexit, and how can we make the best of the situation we might find ourselves in, in two years’ time? Would you please introduce yourselves by saying who you are and what organisation you represent?
Professor Arthur: I am Professor Michael Arthur. I am president and provost of UCL.
Nicola Dandridge: I am Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK.
Dr Conlon: My name is Gavan Conlon. I am a partner at London Economics, which is an education consultancy.
Q105 Chair: Great. Could you briefly say how you reacted to the Prime Minister’s speech last Tuesday?
Professor Arthur: It was a very historic and important speech in which the Prime Minister made it clear that we would be leaving Europe and that that was driven largely by politics—the politics of identity really, and sovereignty and the control of our borders—and that is the backdrop against which we have to interpret everything else she said.
I was very pleased to see higher education, research and science identified. In particular, the Prime Minister made it clear that she understands the importance of our sector to the current profile and prosperity of the UK, but also to the future prosperity of the UK. I was pleased to see that she does want to strike some sort of deal with Europe to continue partnership working, and I was also pleased to see the human aspects mentioned. Obviously, what happens to EU nationals who are currently here working at universities, such as UCL and those elsewhere in the country, is critically important.
I think the devil is in the detail of how we make all of that work against the backdrop of what Brexit is all about in political terms.
Nicola Dandridge: We were likewise encouraged, reassured and pleased to see the prominence given to the role of universities, science and research, and particularly encouraged by the explicit reference to the UK being open to international talent and, more specifically, the acknowledgement that there might be some specific European programmes in which we might want to participate. All of that was very positive but, as the other people giving evidence have said—and as Michael has just said—what we need to hear now is what that means in practice. It wasn’t realistic to expect that degree of detail in that speech, but none the less it would be immensely helpful if the very positive tone of that speech could now be followed up with some more detail.
Dr Conlon: There were positive points in the speech, but there were a lot of inconsistencies, essentially. The first thing is the message about attracting global talent. I think Brexit will make it harder to recruit and retain staff. It will be harder to win research contracts and it will be harder to recruit international students and EU students. So talk about attracting the best and brightest, attracting global talent, does not sit well with some of the other language that is currently prevailing in Government, so there is an inconsistency there.
The second point is that there is an inconsistency in the industrial strategy, which is linked to the Prime Minister’s speech, in the sense that there is a lot of talk about productivity, deficits and UK competitiveness. Higher education is probably one of the sectors that are truly competitive on a global scale; it attracts 10% of internationally mobile students, it is second in the world, and 25% of the world’s monarchs, presidents and prime ministers were educated in the UK, so it is truly globally competitive and I just thought there were inconsistencies in respect to that.
Our view is that there are potential opportunities as a result of Brexit—not because of Brexit but as a result of Brexit—and any attempt to stunt higher education’s competitive advantage is pretty unwelcome.
Q106 Chair: What do you think the Government could do in terms of practical steps, or indeed investment, to ensure that what you have just described continues?
Dr Conlon: In terms of practical steps, I think the first point, as many other contributors mentioned, is about the freedom of movement. It is about indicating that international students are welcome to the UK. The recent analysis that we did on behalf of HEPI indicated that, because there has been a depreciation of the pound, this could generate an extra £463 million per annum in higher education fee income. That is for higher education institutions, but for the UK economy it could be £2 billion per year, so it is a depreciation dividend.
Our view is that there is a lot of uncertainty in higher education, but if there is certainty offered to higher education institutions then they could acquire this additional revenue. In a period when there is diminishing financial resources, we should allow them to be competitive if they are competitive.
Chair: Michael, do you concur with those thoughts?
Professor Arthur: A very important thing that could be done quite quickly would be to sort out the right to remain for existing EU staff in universities and obviously for students as well. That would make a huge difference. I was pleased to see that Ms May put that fairly prominently in her speech. I would like to challenge her to go one step further, which is to take the initiative, take the lead, and indicate to European citizens who are working here in the UK that they will be allowed to stay and then challenge the rest of Europe to follow suit. She could do that quite quickly. It would be very powerful. It would gain some moral high ground and it would set a very positive tone for the rest of the negotiations with the EU.
Nicola Dandridge: There are three sets of things that we are looking at here for the Government to do: first and immediately—as Michael has said—reassurance to European staff. As a sector, we also need reassurance for students who might come to study here in 2018, 2019 and 2020 that they will be able to stay and access the loan arrangements that European students currently enjoy. We need that reassurance soon, because that recruitment process is just about to start, if it has not already. We also need an early indication of continued commitment to Horizon 2020 throughout the whole of that programme. Those are three things that could be done very quickly.
In the longer term we have various proposals that we think need to be made in relation to the exit negotiations. Then there are issues that relate to domestic policy that are not contingent on the Brexit negotiations. First and foremost it is immigration and visa policy for both staff and students, but maybe that is something we can come on to.
Q107 Chair: The possibility of sector-by-sector deals exists as we go through the negotiation and would possibly be extended beyond that time. Do you think such an approach would be effective and useful for this sector itself? Gavan?
Dr Conlon: Absolutely.
Nicola Dandridge: Yes, I think there might be scope particularly in relation to participation in Framework Programme 9 and research funding, but other specific programmes as well. I think there would be real merit in seeing them as specific and subject to bespoke agreements.
Professor Arthur: I am going to agree with that, because of the scale of our interaction with Europe and what it means, so I will give a little bit of data for the Committee. If you look at who is receiving funding from Horizon 2020 and from the European Research Council, and if you look at the universities around Europe, five of the top seven are from the UK. Equal first—we are about €13,000 behind Cambridge, in a total of €72 million of income, so we would call that equal first—is UCL. This is a huge part of our activity and our economy.
If you look just at European Research Council fellowships—and there are three different types: the starting, the basic grants and the advanced grants—40% of the starter grants in this university are held by EU nationals, 33% by UK nationals and 26% by other nationalities who apply to the European Research Council through this institution. Then the figures at a consolidated level are even more amazing: 63% of those are EU nationals. Altogether, when you look at the European Research Council and its funding into this institution, something like 70%-odd of those awards are held by EU or other international researchers. If we do not have access to that, that is a huge dent in our ability to research effectively.
Q108 Chair: Right. So, if we are going to have a sector deal for this sector, we will need some robust mechanisms in the Department for Education and the Department for Exiting the European Union. First of all, do you think that there are adequate opportunities for representation within those Departments for this sector, and do you think the machinery has started to be in place to carry out the kinds of steps that are necessary for this deal?
Professor Arthur: Shortly after the referendum vote, this university—I signed the letters myself—wrote to all the relevant Departments indicating that we had a lot of expertise on Europe and that we would be pleased to help and to interact. We had a series of responses that went along the lines of, “Don’t phone us; we’ll phone you,” and that is still the situation. My view at the moment is that there is insufficient input from the higher education sector into the relevant Government Departments, particularly the Department for Exiting the European Union, and if we are to strike deals then I think we need a lot more expertise and advice coming in directly from the sector.
Chair: To that Department?
Professor Arthur: To that Department in particular, but I think also to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, also into industrial strategy and obviously, given our new home, into DExEU and into DfE as well.
Chair: Is that your view, Nicola and Gavan?
Nicola Dandridge: Yes, we are having input into the Department for Exiting the EU and certainly we have not had any offers of help rebuffed at all and our input has been encouraged. Where I think we would want much more engagement is in relation to the Home Office, because all of this only makes sense if we have an effective immigration system. If we can sort out our immigration system, so that it works for staff and students, then it makes a lot of the exit negotiations a lot easier. If we can have coherence in Government, in terms of their immigration policy, and can have proper engagement with the Home Office, then a lot of this looks a lot more optimistic.
In a way I think Brexit—talking about opportunities that it might present—does present an unparalleled opportunity to revisit our immigration system. So, to answer your question, from our perspective, we have good engagement with Government but we can do so much more if we could have a constructive debate with the Home Office about what a well-functioning, efficient and effective immigration system might look like.
Dr Conlon: I agree. I think the opportunities as a result of Brexit are utterly contingent on the Home Office. There is plenty of evidence for the economic impact of international students, EU students, and what the likely impact of removing student support might be and so on. It is crystal clear that international EU students offer significant economic and social benefits if they are allowed to come, and there is an opportunity that is ready and waiting for higher education institutions to acquire, so it really is up to the Home Office.
Chair: Thank you very much. We are going to go over to Marion to probe more into the opportunities, and her button is already pressed.
Q109 Marion Fellows: I am anxious to get my say. I am going to ask you about opportunities, but first I am going to go back and ask if there have been any disadvantages for higher education due to our membership of the European Union. Can you see any present disadvantages?
Professor Arthur: I am happy to have a crack at that. I think there have been some, but they are relatively few. The bureaucracy associated with applying to the grant funding system is lengthy and tricky; you need a lot of expertise to find your way through it. In medical research, particularly in and around clinical trials, some of the regulatory elements have been slow and laborious. I think there would be potential to streamline those without reducing quality and without reducing the clear need for a good ethical review. So there have been a few but they are relatively few in number.
Marion Fellows: Nicola, do you agree with that?
Nicola Dandridge: Yes, I think that is right. In addition, I would perhaps identify the immigration point again. The fact that we have not been able to control free movement of people as part of being a member of the EU has distorted the debate about immigration, and, given the concerns that the Government have about the numbers coming into the UK, it has forced attention on to international students, that being an area that they could try to contain because they can control the EU flows. So that maybe has been an unhelpful force and contributed to us ending up with the situation where the current visa regime for international students is not particularly positive.
Dr Conlon: I would say that the disadvantages are very few and far between. From my perspective, the advantage is the pool of talent that is so enhanced as a result of having access to highly qualified EU students and the labour market. This far outweighs any disadvantage. Even though we are a private company, not in a higher education institution, the quality of the advice and the evidence that we provide to the UK Government is significantly better as a result of having access to this pool of talent.
Q110 Marion Fellows: We will move on to looking at real opportunities. To what extent does Brexit offer the opportunity to universities to get more involved in the industrial strategy? Nicola, would you like to start with that one?
Nicola Dandridge: I think the industrial strategy is a really positive way of framing a constructive post-Brexit debate, particularly about the role of universities. There are so many issues that are raised by the consultation document that was published on Monday that we want to follow up on and give due consideration and input into, but I would just pick out two. I think it does enable us to have much greater investment in R and D. The consultation paper itself acknowledges that the UK has been lagging behind in terms of its investment in research and development in comparison with OECD averages and, indeed, even more so our competitors. This could allow us to go a long way to remedy that, which I think then puts us in a very good position to engage globally in a post-Brexit world. That is something that we really welcome. We want the Government to go very much further, but I think the seeds are there in that Green Paper consultation.
The other point I would flag is the question of the focus on regions. Clearly this is a huge debate and seeing universities as playing a critical role in their communities in fact is an essential part of the knowledge triangle between industry, innovation and knowledge. The universities are well-placed, I think, to contribute to that knowledge triangle on a regional basis, responding to local economic and social needs, which is captured absolutely in the Green Paper and the industrial strategy.
What we can do is use Brexit as an opportunity to look afresh at these issues: how can we maximise the potential contribution that universities can make in their region, not just economically but in terms of social mobility and social cohesion, supporting start-ups, supporting new entrepreneurs, and contributing in every way to the regional and local economies? There are huge possibilities there too.
Dr Conlon: I am very heartened to see that the industrial strategy recognises that education and investment in human capital is the biggest determinant of long-term economic growth. Human capital is really important. There is a lot of talk about skills in the industrial strategy, and technical institutions. My concern—there is talk of £170 million capital investment for institutes of technology—is that this is very small fry compared to the massive reductions in further education and skills budgets that have occurred over the last five or six years. There is talk in the Houses of Parliament about the importance of night schools, yet adult skills are being eviscerated.
My issue is that the industrial strategy is fine as a name or an objective, and there is a lot of good material in there, but the issue is how to fund something like this. When you have had a higher education sector that, for instance, received £2.3 billion in fees from international students last year for their first year of study, we have this opportunity where higher education can generate a huge amount of resource for the UK economy to pay for many aspects mentioned in the industrial strategy. I think higher education institutions have a huge role in the industrial strategy both directly, in terms of delivering human capital investment or human capital outcomes, but also indirectly as a means of essentially funding these other activities that were mentioned.
Professor Arthur: I am not going to repeat things that have been said that I am highly supportive of. What I would say is that the increased investment in research and innovation is very welcome. My understanding is that it is real, new money. It is £4.7 billion, £2 billion by 2020. As we have invested in the past in UK-based research and innovation, we have always done it against the backdrop of similar levels of funding from Europe and, therefore, the connectivity of that research and innovation is an ecosystem. My view would be that, if you want the best use of the money that will be spent in the UK, it needs to be reconnected to Europe and of course elsewhere internationally. I think seeing it in the round is critically important.
Q111 Marion Fellows: My final question is: how should the Government use the money they will save on tuition fees for the reduced cohort of EU students? At the moment they are paying it out. What should they do with it when they no longer have to?
Professor Arthur: Of course, the money they pay out is in loans. In theory, the money does re-enter the economy later as those students are earning. It is important to remember that it is not just Government cash that disappears. It is a huge issue but what I would like to tell the Committee is that we have looked into this in a bit more detail at UCL. How many of our students take that loan? Interestingly, 48% of all our EU students take the loan. If you look at that by country you find that, if you look at Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Greece—those are our largest number of students in this institution—only 30% take the loan. If you look at the eastern European countries, you find that it is more like 70% take the loan. Quite what will happen post-Brexit, how many of those students will still come and how many of them will feel confident enough to come without the loan, is a very interesting issue and very difficult to predict. Of course, we will be doubling our marketing efforts across those countries where we think we can still be successful at attracting EU students.
Nicola Dandridge: As Michael said, it is a loan, and the amount that EU students do not repay to date on the scale of things is relatively—in fact, lower than the non-repayments by UK people who work abroad. On the scale of things, it is a fairly low sum. We are of course focusing here on England and not Scotland. There are all sorts of other issues there, which you will know.
Dr Conlon: To put this in context, if you assume that an undergraduate fee is £9,000, the Government spends about £2,000 in terms of the write-offs associated with that £9,000, so that is the money that the Government might gain. That is one side of the equation. On the other side, the losses—so let us think about the non-tuition fee income that those EU students would no longer spend—that is about £10,000. The benefit to cost ratio is 0.2%, so that would be a really poor policy, essentially, from an economic perspective.
The second point is that if you remove the loan subsidy, the composition of students that come to the UK will be fundamentally different, so you are essentially going to increase the price of higher education by 23% per annum. In addition to this, because there is no loan availability it is going to hit people with credit constraints, so the whole composition of the cohort of individuals coming to the UK will be different. That is the second negative.
The third negative is that universities—I am sure my colleagues will agree with me on this—use the money from EU and international students to help subsidise and provide other courses to UK students. There are positive spill-over effects or externalities that allow universities to do a better job for all students. If you remove the student loan subsidies from EU students, pretty much everybody is better off—higher education institutions but also the local economy in which EU students live and spend money. I would suggest it would be unwise to think that there will be any savings made.
Marion Fellows: Thank you. I find that really interesting.
Chair: Thank you, Marion. We are now going to move on to Ian, who is going to be looking at financial advantages from Brexit.
Q112 Ian Mearns: Gavan, in your recent report there was an indication that a 10% depreciation in sterling in response to Brexit could result in a £227 million positive impact on the fee revenue of students in their first year. That is a potential financial advantage for universities, but how likely are these financial advantages, if there are any, given the uncertainty about the final deal?
Dr Conlon: That is a very good point. The analysis that we did is historical. We illustrated that exchange rates do have an impact on the decision of students to enrol in the UK.
Q113 Ian Mearns: Brexit optimists might say that the currency might recover. I don’t know.
Dr Conlon: Equally, it is likely to depreciate further. Certainly, the depreciation makes UK higher education more attractive. It also makes US higher education less attractive. The analysis shows that with the depreciation—from 22 June the depreciation has been 10.6%, so it is a reasonable assumption—the impact is that there will potentially be an extra 5,000 EU students who come to the UK, and another 15,000 international students, which would result in about £467 million in additional income per year. That has a consequential impact on the UK economy of £2 billion per year, so potentially very strong positive effects.
The issue is about the uncertainty. As an economist, this holds everything else constant. Because it is historical data, this assumes that there is no identifiable impact of Brexit in terms of how people perceive the UK economy or the UK higher education institutions. It also assumes that the US presidential election had not happened.
Ian Mearns: It was just a dream.
Dr Conlon: So we cannot say but, if everything else was equal, this is the sort of effect that we would see: £2 billion per annum. What the effect of Brexit is, the reputation of UK higher education and perceptions, it will potentially be lower than that but you would imagine it would be positive.
Q114 Ian Mearns: That sort of economic financial analysis kind of puts to one side other considerations. I think we heard at Oxford a couple of weeks ago that inquiries about coming to British universities were about 10% down from EU countries as a result of the Brexit referendum, so there are social and international considerations as well as the financial considerations from the economic perspective.
Dr Conlon: Absolutely. The social effect of Brexit and the political language from the Home Office will clearly dampen the potential positive impact of the depreciation of the pound.
Q115 Ian Mearns: Michael, do you agree with the analysis that Gavan has given in his report? He has qualified it to a certain extent since then.
Professor Arthur: Ian, I think it would be fair to say that econometrics is not my forte. When I read the report I was quite alarmed at what it looked like to start with. There are lots of assumptions in the report, not least of which is the assumption I have already indicated, which is: how many EU students will continue to come and pay a higher fee? That variable can obviously have quite a significant impact and it will probably be different in one institution from another.
If you look at what is happening at the moment, we have just had the 15 January deadline on applications. I have the data for the whole sector and I have the data for UCL in front of me. If we look at the UK students, home students, there is a 4.97% decrease nationally. If you look at EU there is a 7.43% decrease and, overseas, other non-EU international students are down just 0.26%. So far that exchange rate mechanism does not seem to be affecting applications. It may well affect conversions and student numbers eventually. By the way, the respective numbers for UCL are quite different. We are up in the UK 5%. We are down in the EU just 0.8% and we are up in overseas by 6.9%. You begin to see the huge variation that there will be across the country. We always think that being based here in central London is a huge positive in terms of these sorts of recruitment figures.
Q116 Ian Mearns: I’m afraid you sent a shudder down my spine talking about the ERM, but not to worry. Nicola, would you agree with the analysis?
Nicola Dandridge: I cannot comment on the economics of it, but certainly what we do observe is fragility in terms of EU student numbers, which were signalled by those early releases. That is striking a chord with the experience of many vice-chancellors across the country who are concerned about EU numbers. Of course, bear in mind that this is coinciding with our competitor countries, particularly in the EU, seeing this as a huge advantage for them and they are redoubling their marketing efforts since Brexit is posing a good opportunity for them to recruit internationally mobile EU students, quite regardless of international students.
There were two points that Michael made that I think are really important. It does vary between different institutions, as Gavan’s report flags quite clearly. That in part has a knock-on effect in terms of regional impact. I come back to that point again. What we could see is strong south-eastern brands—of which UCL is a rather obvious example—being able to benefit from that, but that is not necessarily the experience of other regions. We must not forget Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—this is not just about England. Scotland is very different, so let’s leave that out, but I think in other parts of England, in particular, and Wales and Northern Ireland the experience may be very different.
Ian Mearns: Michael, do you want to come back?
Professor Arthur: Yes. I want to make another point. Not only will there be variation by institution, but there will be variation by discipline. One of the very concerning things that we have seen is a really significant reduction in applications to our School of European Languages, Culture & Society and also to our School of Slavonic and East European Studies, which are also down about 30% in applications compared to 0.8% overall. That is something new that we have not experienced before, and something that we will obviously have to deal with. Fortunately, the students who apply for those courses are of a very high quality and I think we will probably still be able to fill the course, even though applications are down, but obviously it is an early indication of potential difficulties.
Q117 Ian Mearns: It may well be that the inquiries that you have announced the statistics on, in terms of the reductions in applications, might be a blip, a knee jerk to what has occurred. Let us hope that that is the case. If there is any financial gain, in terms of the finances of the overall sector, it is relatively small in total, isn’t it?
Dr Conlon: I don’t think £0.5 billion a year is a small number.
Professor Arthur: It does not feel small when you are running a tight budget.
Q118 Ian Mearns: I understand that. I come from a local authority background that has lost 45% of its funding in the last six years, so I understand what running a tight ship is about. In terms of the funding of the overall sector, £0.5 billion is probably manageable, given what has happened in other parts of the public sector.
Dr Conlon: It is certainly the case that higher education institutions and the higher education sector have been less affected than other sectors of the economy. I would certainly agree with that. From an economics perspective, this is money on the table because people want to come to the UK to study. There are high-quality courses. There is a clear advantage for those individuals if they stay or if they return to their originating country and, essentially, it might mop up or solidify some of the other loss of revenues that might occur over the next couple of years, so why institutions would not be allowed to try to acquire as much of that income as is humanly possible I do not know.
Given the fact that the industrial strategy talks about productivity and competition and competitiveness, as I said before we have a globally competitive sector, one of relatively few that can compete with the United States, for instance, so why we would not give as much of a boost and encouragement to the higher education sector I don’t know.
Q119 Ian Mearns: There are other funding pressures on the sector. The Higher Education Funding Council for England has said that the depreciation of the pound may help in the short term but will not solve long-term financial problems in the sector. Do you have any thoughts about its attitude to that? It does seem to me that, from its perspective, it is a marginal thing.
Nicola Dandridge: Also, in the context of what we are talking about this morning, that money has to be seen in the context of all the other consequences of Brexit, which are huge. I appreciate that is not the point of your question, but you cannot disentangle them.
Ian Mearns: I understand that.
Nicola Dandridge: International European students, large numbers of whom will go on to be postgraduates, will then go on to teach often in subjects where we may not have enough local capacity. Then they become key researchers who attract partners and funding, who participate and bring in other sources of funds. The whole thing is an ecosystem, so I am slightly uneasy about picking out any one element in isolation. It is part of a whole picture. That is the difficulty of this debate. We have become so intertwined with all these different mechanisms and structures, so the reason I would be hesitant about responding in those terms is that it just feels too narrow.
Ian Mearns: I accept that entirely. Nothing within this discussion is placed in a silo; it is all interdependent in many respects.
Professor Arthur: Let me just add another point, which I think is important—which did not come out from the first panel as much as I thought it might—which is that if I look now at my best team, my best researchers and my best educators, then I find a very large number of European citizens who have been working here for a long time. Many of them came as PhD students or post-doctorate and then they have made their careers and have given their best science to the United Kingdom over 20, 30 or more years. I am very worried about the pernicious effect of cutting that off at the starting point through the changes that are going to come with Brexit. I think, ultimately, we will suffer if we don’t understand that pipeline of talent.
Chair: That is a very good opportunity for us to move on to the movement of people, with Catherine and Marion.
Q120 Catherine McKinnell: Nicola, you suggested that you don’t want to answer questions about the potential financial impacts of Brexit without looking at the wider picture. I want to ask about the wider picture of what you think may be the impacts for universities of declining numbers of EU students, either in general terms or in economic terms as well, if that is the main consequence that is your concern.
Nicola Dandridge: Declining students mainly means declining postgraduates and declining numbers of academics, who will be those students going to other competitor countries and being able to contribute their talents, not just as students but, as I say, through the pipeline into teaching and research, so there is a potential future consequence there in terms of what those students do.
There is the benefit that international and European students bring to the domestic student cohort—we heard about that in the earlier session—and that is particularly significant, in terms of social mobility and those domestic students who may be going to their local university, not necessarily in London, but in other parts of the UK, and wouldn’t otherwise have that exposure to a global environment. That is a real loss to people who may not otherwise be able to mix with international friends and colleagues. There is clearly the economic loss from students, which Gavan has spoken about, which is difficult to calculate but tangible, nonetheless, particularly if this drop in numbers continues.
There is, particularly for postgraduates, this other question of sustainability of courses. We are quite dependent on EU and international student numbers for some courses, which then benefits the UK cohort, particularly in STEM subjects, which simply might not be viable without those international students. We can talk a lot about the soft power and the fact that these people become ambassadors for the country and then that informs industrial engagement. Those are the main issues that I would identify.
Catherine McKinnell: Michael, do you have something to add?
Professor Arthur: Yes. What the European students add to UCL is simply huge. First of all, they are very talented students; they do incredibly well and work very hard. They have self-selected to come for an international educational experience, so they are already differentiating themselves. They add a huge diversity of cultures, which is very positive for our home students to interact with. I am a very firm believer that the creativity of a university is absolutely fuelled by that diversity of cultures and talent. If you look at the way people operate when they are solving a problem together—and obviously in our context that would often be in and around coursework or research-based education—then you find a huge amount of creativity from that environment. We style ourselves as London’s global university. It doesn’t look quite so good if it says, “London’s global university—minus Europe.” It is just not the same thing.
Chair: It is a long strapline, isn’t it?
Professor Arthur: This is an incredibly important part of what this university is absolutely all about. We would miss those students hugely. If we go over, post-Brexit, to a system whereby we still have to attract them and they are paying international fees, then of course some Europeans will still come, but they will be rather different from the countries that they come from—as I alluded to earlier in my evidence—and they will also be from the wealthier end of the spectrum of income in those countries that they come from. The dynamic will change in an unpredictable way and that ultimately will be a loss.
By the way, I would say the same about all our international students. We have students here now from 160 different countries, and we have a lot of them. About 30% of our students come internationally, 12% EU, and 58% home. The change in mix would be something that we would be really concerned about.
Q121 Catherine McKinnell: Are you suggesting there is a risk that universities in the UK could end up attracting the most socially mobile, rather than necessarily the best and brightest in terms of talent?
Professor Arthur: That is definitely a risk.
Q122 Catherine McKinnell: On that basis, what can the Government do to ensure that UK universities remain attractive to EU students after Brexit, during Brexit and now?
Professor Arthur: The Government should set a very clear tone. I challenged the Prime Minister earlier to make some moves on EU staff, those who have been here for five years and their right to remain. Anything that could be done to send positive signals to the student body would also be very welcome, but I think just speaking very openly about the future of the UK, how they see the importance of research, science, higher education generally, the attraction of top talent and the sorts of things that Mrs May said in her speech, but with a bit more detail behind how this would work, such that it is a bit more convincing.
Nicola Dandridge: There are things that we would want the Government to do in terms of the practicalities of visas, and then there is the broader messaging point that Michael has just alluded to. Taking students out of net migration would be the most powerful signal possible for the latter because, at the moment, the signal that is being sent out is that we want to reduce students and that has been heard loud and clear. What we would most want is that very clear signal that we welcome genuine students, genuine talented students, to come to the country. That messaging should not be underestimated in terms of the significance and power that it could have.
On the more practical side of things, I would hope that we could move to a situation where we are basing our immigration policy on robust data. There is a sense both internally in universities, but I think also externally, that the way our visa system works is subjective and perhaps politicised and unreliable, so if we could tie the visa policy very much more closely to robust data. Everyone acknowledges—well, almost everyone—that the international passenger survey is unreliable in informing policy development. If we could move away from that, so that we had a clear and transparent understanding of how our visa system worked, based on robust data, that would also send out a very positive message.
We have to stop making changes to our visa system as well. It is most unsettling for international students, particularly when changes are made halfway through their studies. If they could have a sense that they could rely on the system and that it is not going to change, that everyone knows where they stand, that would be immensely reassuring. Then there are various bureaucratic hurdles that people find they encounter when they apply for a visa, not least the cost. If you come here and you have a dependant, it is very expensive, you have to pay the NHS surcharge and the whole thing adds up, so there are cost issues. It is also very cumbersome for both the institution and the student.
There are all sorts of housekeeping matters that we could streamline. If you put all that together, it would send an immensely positive signal to students, not compromising on the fact that they need to be genuine and they are here to study and that they leave and all the rest of it, but none the less it puts us on a good platform to compete with our competitors. At the moment we don’t feel we are capable of doing that, and that is Australia, the States, Canada and many European countries as well.
Q123 Catherine McKinnell: You have touched on avoiding changes within the rules, but there is a strong likelihood that during the Brexit negotiations, or certainly to come in later, there may be changes.
Professor Arthur: To do that now would be the most unhelpful thing. Now is not the time to make changes to the visa regime, until we have a proper system that we can all trust and understand. Apart from changes such as taking students out of net migration, which would obviously be very positive, any change to the way the visa rules work now would be utterly unhelpful.
Q124 Marion Fellows: How can universities continue to compete successfully on those things in a post-Brexit UK? What do you think we can do?
Professor Arthur: I can tell you what we are doing to mitigate changes related to Brexit. First of all, we have been looking at home and thinking a lot more about bringing more students into this institution from low-income backgrounds, so widening the participation agenda and redoubling our efforts there. We see that as an important element of reconnecting with society post-Brexit. We think we can make a significant contribution there.
Immediately post-referendum, I wrote to all our international partners indicating that, even though the UK was going in one direction, this university wished to remain very international in its outlook and that we would like to redouble our partnership efforts. We did not limit that to non-EU countries; I also wrote to all our European partners. It was very interesting. I was in Paris doing a farewell event for the students who were about to come here. I invited six vice-chancellors—our partners in Europe—to come to discuss the situation and they turned up at very short notice, so there is a huge fascination for what has gone on in the UK.
Then, of course, we are talking about diversifying our markets and spreading ourselves around the rest of the world a little more aggressively than we might have done ordinarily, and obviously investing in that marketing function.
Nicola Dandridge: Michael has put it extremely well and I have also covered some of these things already, so can I just add one further point here? What I think we should all be doing is joining up very effectively with Government, in particular, and as a sector. We have to engage in Brexit together. The challenges are too big for us to be operating independently or at loggerheads. There is a real need for us to develop a coherent, international message as to what we are about here. At the moment, I don’t think we are quite doing that, but there is a great opportunity to do it, to make sure we are saying the same things, that we have the same priorities, so far as that is possible, and that there is coherence between the different parts of Government, so far as that is possible.
This is always challenging, of course, and our interests are not always going to be aligned, but we have to move beyond that and see how we can come together and present a coherent picture about implementing the Prime Minister’s vision about an internationally engaged UK, with universities absolutely at the heart of that. It is a challenge, but we can do it. I think this Committee is a good start.
Q125 Marion Fellows: What do you think the UK could learn from Canada and Australia, where they have points-based systems? Would that help us to attract more overseas researchers? Do you think we should follow that model?
Professor Arthur: We just need a system that works, whether it is points-based or whatever the other basis of it is. It needs to work for us in a relatively low level of bureaucracy and relatively rapidly, if we are going to attract the best. Some 30% of my research staff body, which is around 6,000 strong, are EU nationals, so we are going to need a system that can identify their talent—points-based maybe, but I guess there would be other mechanisms—that allows us to continue to attract them here and in a way that is internationally competitive. Because these people are talented they are under offer in their home countries and, as you have hinted, from Canada, America and Australia.
Chair: I sense that Nicola and Gavan are both basically agreeing with that point. We are going to move on to Catherine, with the theme of programmes and collaboration.
Q126 Catherine McKinnell: Continued collaboration in research science was one of the Government’s 12 negotiation priorities. How reassured were you by the Government’s pledge?
Professor Arthur: I was surprised that the Prime Minister went that far in that particular speech. I was delighted to see it. There are very few organisations globally that fund research across more than two national boundaries. When you try to research outside the EU and you put forward grant applications with Americans, Chinese, Australians or whoever, then you constantly come across the problem of double, triple or quadruple jeopardy, so one country will fund a piece of research and the other country cannot prioritise it and the whole thing falls to pieces.
The EU has cut straight through that. It is the best organisation globally for funding research networks across more than two boundaries. Those connections are critically important in the way that research runs. It isn’t only just working with the individuals in France or Germany; it is also working with all of their international connections, and that is why it has been so effective. The problem I have, of course, is to continue that.
I suspect that the European Union will demand free movement. That is what I said at the beginning: it is the practicalities of these things and how do we make it work against the backdrop of concerns about immigration? One can imagine special arrangements for EU citizens to continue to come for research or study reasons. The idea there is very simple, because it benefits the prosperity of the United Kingdom. This isn’t about them. It is not about this university. It is about the future of our country and its success in a globalised world.
We absolutely need the talent into that, so we need to set up a system that works. We could do it ourselves. We could pull back and do the whole thing in the UK. I would invite you all to stare over the abyss of the cost of reproducing all of that, not least of which would be all the bureaucracy to reproduce it, so my personal view is that it would be better to cut a working deal with the European Union. But I don’t underestimate the complexity of so doing, both in EU law terms and in terms of whatever the agreement might be. If we can pull it off, it will be by far the best thing.
I have already alluded to the huge sums of money that are flowing into research in the United Kingdom through Europe, through Horizon 2020 and the European Research Council. We would need a system that replaces all of those key things: the mobility of people, the networking, and the working across multiple boundaries. The ERC adds more research excellence to the profile. The other thing that the ERC does, which is crucial, are all those fellowships for early career researchers, intermediate career and advanced career awards. Those have been massively important in the way that a university such as UCL runs. We would need to reinvent a system that creates that vitality and that ecosystem that is necessary for research to really prosper.
Q127 Chair: We need to speed up a bit, so do you all agree with what Michael has said?
Nicola Dandridge: I do. Can I add a couple of further points? I do absolutely agree. The framework programmes were initiated in 1983. It has taken that long to expand exponentially in terms of the money going through it. It is quite a complicated business to set up a multinational pooled financial research operation, so supporting Michael’s point that, even though we may like the idea of some alternative system, we would need to acknowledge that it is going to be a long time in developing it. We have an awful lot to lose meantime.
There is also the access to all the networks that sit alongside that. It is those networks that then recreate further research collaborations in the future. The prestige that is attached to the European Research Council is huge. That cannot simply be reproduced. Also, just a final comment on this is that there are all sorts of common regulatory frameworks. We may not like them, but you need something in there to make sure that there is effective cross-national collaboration. There is a lot in there.
Dr Conlon: I think this is another inconsistency in the Prime Minister’s speech, in the sense that these are words and they are welcome words about international EU collaboration, and I think everybody would realise that there is benefit to this. This is only one side of the argument. On the other side we have the EU collaborators, who are potentially engaging in research partnerships at UK higher education institutions, and not just UK higher education institutions. Our own organisation has one substantial Horizon 2020 research contract.
The issue is that we have witnessed across the HE sector EU partners being just less willing to collaborate. Implicitly—nothing would ever be said—the UK has become slightly tainted. Clearly, these EU research projects are hugely prestigious. If it is the case that you are going to lose a couple of per cent in your bid because you have a UK partner, no matter how good they are, then you might find a better alternative. This is the problem. It is the same about welcoming the best and the brightest. It is all fine having words, but there has to be not just more precise detail, but deeds.
Q128 Catherine McKinnell: I want to follow up on one issue. You mentioned the freedom of movement that is likely to be a requirement of continued participation in the current scheme. How do you think that might be able to work in practice, given that you did set out in your very opening comments your acknowledgement that much of this process does seem to be focused on immigration and the Home Office, rather than economic drivers?
Professor Arthur: I am going to assume that, if we think it is a good thing and it is going to benefit the country, we will find a way to do it. Now, there are several options. One is that we don’t change anything and we carry on as we are. I accept that that is unlikely to be the case, even for a restricted number of individuals related to the higher education sector, but I do think we should at least discuss that possibility. We could move over to the same system by which we recruit everyone else internationally or we can move to more of a redesigned points-based system. What we need is a system that works and that is non-bureaucratic.
I am just going to disagree slightly with Gavan about the current situation in Europe. We have managed that very actively. We are a member of the League of European Research Universities. We have been lobbying back to the Commission to make sure and to let them know that we are kind of keeping an eye on what happens to UK grant applications to the EU currently. Here at UCL—and I have to commend the academic staff with this institution—our response to it has been to increase the number of applications that we have sent. If I look across the board, it is interesting to look at what an academic community does when it is under pressure: it nosedives for income. Overall, across all the agencies, our grant applications in the last year have gone up 30%. That is people responding, “Let’s keep going. Let’s go for it and let’s keep the European applications going,” but it has spread out into everything else. People are trying to secure their future.
Q129 Ian Mearns: I am going to play Roy Plomley now, okay? You have your eight discs and the wave comes and washes them all away, so in terms of EU programmes that universities in the United Kingdom have access to and the benefit of, which one would you save, which one will you retain membership of and which one would you want continued access to?
Professor Arthur: I would like one for students and one for research.
Ian Mearns: You are only allowed one.
Professor Arthur: I am only allowed one? That puts me on the spot. The European Research Council is crucially important to UCL.
Nicola Dandridge: I am a great fan of “Desert Island Discs” so I know how you answer this. You get two in before you have had a chance to be stopped. Access to ERC framework programme and security for EU staff.
Ian Mearns: There is no argument.
Nicola Dandridge: Well, they are all part of the same thing.
Ian Mearns: All right. Gavan? You are allowed one.
Dr Conlon: I would introduce two migration targets, so a current one and then a second migration target running in parallel that excludes students. I would run them in parallel for at least three or four years.
Q130 Ian Mearns: Just for the record, does anybody, off the top of their head, know how many international students overstay their visa?
Dr Conlon: Very few.
Dr Conlon: A greater proportion of people don’t pay their bus fares.
Professor Arthur: My international students are really good at dodging those people with clipboards at the airport.
Nicola Dandridge: It is a contested figure and perhaps we can drop you a line with the figures.
Ian Mearns: Nicola, that would be very useful, but I keep hearing stats around about 1%.
Dr Conlon: That feels about right.
Chair: We have to finish now. Thank you very much indeed for coming to this panel today. I want to thank Michael, in particular, after his invitation and for sorting out our arrival here and what we have done today and his team. Thank you very much indeed.
Professor Arthur: It has been our pleasure. You are welcome any time.
Chair: That would be great. Thank you.