Wales as a Nation of Sanctuary

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 6 December 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:36, 6 December 2022

Llywydd, it's always been a mystery to me as to why student visas are always reported as part of that global immigration total. If you look at all the surveys of public opinion, even parts of public opinion that have anxieties about immigration are not anxious about students coming to study here in the United Kingdom. So, to include them in that global figure always seems to me highly misleading. It would be much better if it was just taken out of the total and reported on its own merits as a subject by itself. I think that would be helpful to the public, in better understanding why people come to the United Kingdom, or why people come to Wales, and why, certainly, in the case of students, we wish to welcome more of them. They bring income with them, they bring a new source of talent to our universities, and they contribute to life here in Wales.

On the general point of spatially differentiated immigration, actually, that does depend not on the Welsh Government but on the UK Government as well. There was a time when it was possible to have a conversation with the UK Government, but this was a UK Government prior to 2019, where you could have an engaged conversation about whether visas might be directly allocated to Wales, for us to use, so that we could make sure that people who were entitled to come to Wales could be directed to those industries where they were most needed, and to those parts of Wales where their impact would be greatest. In more recent times, those sorts of discussions simply don't take place. It would be very good if the new Prime Minister would be happy to revive those conversations, because they would allow us, closer as we are to the Welsh labour market, to be able to make best use of those people whose skills and talents we're able to attract to Wales.