UK plans curbs on overseas students amid immigration furore
The UK government on Tuesday announced new visa limits affecting international students, with the ruling Conservatives locked in a war of words over soaring immigration.
Under the new measures only students on postgraduate courses designated as research programmes — typically lasting longer than two years — will be able to bring dependants to the UK while they study.
Much of that has been driven by bespoke visa schemes for people fleeing Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan. But student numbers have also surged.
That has stoked political controversy, and cabinet infighting over the issue spilled into the open last week as right-wing Home Secretary Suella Braverman urged her own government to get tougher.
Ranged against her are the finance and education ministers, who value the skills brought in by foreign workers and the high overseas fees paid by students to UK universities.
In a statement to parliament, Braverman said the proposals struck the “right balance” and would likely see net migration “fall to pre-pandemic levels in the medium term”.
Some 136,000 visas were issued to the dependants of international students last year — up eight-fold from 16,000 in 2019, she said.
In future, overseas students will be prevented from switching “out of the student route into work routes” before they have finished their courses.
But the government said it was not planning any change to foreign students being able to stay in Britain for two years on the same visa, after their course, provided they have found employment.
There will also be “improved and more enforcement activity” and a clampdown on “unscrupulous agents” using education as a cover for immigration, according to Braverman’s statement.
The minister said overseas students played an important part in supporting the UK economy.
But she said that should not come at the cost of the government’s intention “to lower overall migration and ensure that migration to the UK is highly skilled and therefore provides the most benefit.” —