The graduate visa system “does not offer any value to the skills of the UK labour market”, a Conservative MP has claimed.
A government-commissioned review into the UK’s graduate visa route reported yesterday that it had not found widespread abuse of the route and said it should remain in place.
The visa allows overseas students to stay in the UK for two or three years after graduation.
But Professor Brian Bell, chairman of the independent Migration Advisory Committee (Mac), which conducted the review, appearing at the Home Affairs select committee this morning, was quizzed on whether the scheme was “adding to the skills base of the UK labour market”.
James Daly, Tory MP for Bury North, said: “Looking at the wider impact of the graduate route… I don’t think anybody can possibly argue with this, there must be a point in terms of adding to the skills base of the UK labour market and adding to the economy.
“I’ve looked at your report and it seems to me absolutely crystal clear that the graduate route does not offer any value to the skills of the UK labour market at all.”
He added: “The best case scenario is a very small number of people are adding to the UK labour market skills base.
“In terms of values added for the British taxpayer, in terms of the cost involved in this, it is not benefiting the economy in a reasonable and proportionate way compared to what it is supposed to be achieving.”
Professor Bell said the assertion was “broadly fair” but added: “Had we been asked the question by the government, ‘do you think the graduate route is necessary alongside the skilled worker route to bring skilled work into the UK’, our answer would probably have been that the arguments are less compelling.
“That wasn’t the question the government asked us. They asked if it has achieved its objectives.”
Asked whether the Prime Minister agreed with Daly, his spokesman said: “We’re committed to ensuring that we do attract the best and brightest to study at our world class universities. But we also want to ensure the value of the route and that is why we commissioned the MAC to do this review.
“I’ve pointed to data that suggests a quarter of graduate visa holders were not found to have been employed, and to add to that, of those who earned in at least one month of the last financial year 40 per cent earned less than £15,000.”
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And he added: “We need to look at this data from the MAC report in the round and we’ll put out out approach to the graduate route in due course.”
A Labour Party spokesman cited shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson’s comments to the Evening Standard on Tuesday.
She said “International students make a major contribution to our country in economic terms.
“Alongside that, the jobs and local communities that are created and the investment that comes that’s felt in every community right across the country that has a university.”
Phillipson added: “We do want to bear down on the very high levels of net immigration that we see overall and we’ll be looking carefully at whatever the government says in response to the MAC.
“But they have set out some very clear recommendation which are evidence based and our approach on international students will be in line with the best available evidence.”