7. 7. Plaid Cymru Debate: The Welsh Higher Education Sector

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:41 pm on 11 January 2017.

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Photo of Hefin David Hefin David Labour 4:41, 11 January 2017

Not in Wales. That wasn’t happening in Wales. I’ll tell you something else: as a Conservative, your policy is usually to get the state out of things. Well, I tell you what: you are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If you wanted to resolve some of these things at those colleges where there were misdemeanours, you resolve them with those colleges by shutting those colleges down. You don’t do it by damaging the Welsh economy.

Overseas students are included as well in the UK’s net migration figures. That is utterly, utterly absurd. These people are students, not migrants, and they make a huge contribution to our economy, and they still do. In 2013-14, in that academic year, even after these destructive reforms were introduced, international students made up just under one fifth of those in UK education. If we go any further with these proposals with student visas, we are going to damage our economy. It’s therefore difficult to overstate the importance of overseas students to higher education in Wales. I am a member of the University and College Union, and they carried out a survey that found that, post Brexit, two fifths of staff and students were now more likely to consider not coming to the UK or leaving the UK higher education system as a result of Brexit, because of fears that those conditions that international students outside the EU suffer—they will face the same problems within the EU. I met a university vice-chancellor who told me that international staff were vital to the development of outward-looking teaching and research. Yes, David.