Reform of migration figures ‘chance to ease political pressure’

UK universities and supportive voices in government are seeing moves to improve official migration figures as a chance to ease intense political pressure around international student recruitment brought by the Conservative drive to reduce net migration.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has launched a consultation on the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales, having already outlined “various ways to estimate the contribution of different patterns of migration to the population, including possible ways of isolating estimates of international students from other types of migrants”.

Removing students from net migration figures has been advocated by Universities UK (UUK) in the past and remains the aim for some in the sector.

However, any such move would raise political challenges around the public credibility of an altered net migration count, as well as challenges for the ONS in departing from the United Nations definition of a long-term migrant, which includes students.

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A more realistic goal, some now think, is to support the ONS in producing a more nuanced net migration figure, potentially showing students as temporary or non-immigrant residents – following the approach to students in the official migration statistics of competitor nations the US and Canada – or showing the number of students leaving the country at the end of their courses.

That is seen as a way to create some much-needed separation between international student recruitment and the increasingly toxic politics around immigration.

The latest batch of immigration figures showed net migration at 606,000 for the 12 months to December, with students and their dependants making up 361,000 of that. Ahead of the release of those figures in May, home secretary Suella Braverman attempted to ease expected negative press over rising immigration by announcing that only students enrolled on postgraduate research courses would be allowed to bring dependants into the UK.

Hence the ONS’ consultation on gathering better data for rolling population estimates is seen as a significant moment by the sector and by parts of government supportive of international student recruitment, such as the Department for Education and Department for Business and Trade.

In a publication on “exploring alternative definitions” in population and migration estimates, released ahead of the consultation, the ONS says that students are “an important interest group to many users and some question whether they should be included in our long-term international migration (LTIM) estimates”, as they are “often considered part of the temporary population who arrive to study and leave once their studies are completed”.

But given the complexities of their visa paths, with some students staying on for work after graduation and some ultimately gaining settled status, it is “important to consider how much students contribute to population change over time”, the ONS adds.

The ONS consultation offered “a good opportunity to try and hopefully move us towards a better discussion on immigration policy”, said Harry Anderson, UUK policy manager for its work on immigration policy.

UUK will be gathering feedback from its members to inform its response to the ONS consultation, but suggested it would not be advocating for the removal of international students from the net migration figures. “What we’re saying is you can probably, alongside that net migration stat, produce other data that help contextualise that headline stat a bit more,” said Mr Anderson.

“One of the things we’re quite alive to is…you could quite feasibly look at the headline net migration stat and think that means a population of a large city is coming to the UK every year” as students, he continued.

“What’s lost…is that on average, based on historical data, around 60 per cent of those [arriving as students] will leave at the end of their visas and then of that 40 per cent who stay, there will be lots of different visa journeys and actually a very small percentage will end up staying and being granted residency.”

One of the options proposed by the ONS is to follow each yearly cohort of students from their first visa on arrival in the UK, “estimating the proportion of students who transfer on to a secondary non-student visa, producing a five-year annual rolling average”, then applying that “to produce an alternative estimate of net migration that excludes students who enter the UK but do not transfer to an alternative reason for migration”.

The ONS’ cohort tracking proposal is “one of the models we’re quite interested in”, said Mr Anderson.

Vanessa Wilson, the University Alliance chief executive, said: “The political debate on migration should better reflect that international students are highly valued but mostly temporary visitors to the UK. The data would absolutely benefit from more nuance to understand the true picture on migration, but whether there is appetite for nuance in the current politically motivated discourse remains to be seen.

“Our ultimate goal remains: removing international students from net migration figures to more accurately reflect the real position on migration in the UK for the public.”

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com