THE Government is committing an ‘act
of national self-harm' by pursuing a visa policy which deters the
brightest and the best STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) talent
from coming to the UK, the influential House of Lords Science and
Technology Committee has
warned.
Its stark message comes after analysis
showed that high up-front visa costs, coupled with an inflexible
immigration system, were putting the UK at a severe competitive
disadvantage.
The country was now in a situation
where talented Masters and PhD students, as well as early-career
researchers, scientists and tech experts were spurning the UK -
depriving it of vital talent, particularly in fields like AI,
peers said.
Meanwhile, the detrimental policies
were also having a harmful impact on business as well as on
charities such as Cancer Research UK which is braced for
additional visa costs of £700,000 annually, taking money away
from life-saving research.
The UK urgently needs overseas
expertise to drive its economic growth and enable the country to
compete with global powerhouses like the
US.
In a letter (attached) to the Home
Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Science Minister,
, the outgoing
chair of the cross-party Lords Science and Technology Committee,
highlighted that UK visa costs had surged by up to 58 per cent,
now surpassing those of any comparable
country.
The requirement for someone to pay the
full Immigration Health Surcharge up-front for the duration of a
visa could result in an initial bill running into tens of
thousands of pounds, the letter says.
“This is a huge deterrent to
postdoctoral researchers,” said Baroness Brown, an engineer with
a career spanning senior engineering and leadership roles in
industry and academia.
She added: “We understand that the
Government was elected on a pledge to reduce overall immigration
… but the ‘Global Talent' visa (designed to help exceptional
researchers come to the UK) only accounts for around 4,000 people
a year.”
Peers also cautioned that cutting the
number of international students had far-reaching consequences.
Many higher education institutions relied on international
student fees to cross-subsidise domestic teaching and scientific
research, and the Government must mitigate the consequences of
its actions, they said.
The Lords Committee heard that
applicants to postgraduate taught courses at Cranfield
University, a specialist postgraduate university in Bedford, had
declined by 47 per cent in just two
years.
Peers called on the Government to
review a ban surrounding international students bringing
dependants with them, and for it to consider whether granting
exemptions would actually result in a net benefit for the
UK.
The Committee recently published
a report on engineering
biology, a cutting-edge
science that redesigns nature to solve real-world problems. The
report emphasised that opportunities in this field, too, were at
risk of being squandered unless the Government took steps to
improve apprenticeships and attract global
expertise.
