London business leaders cheered today after George Osborne appeared to block attempts by Theresa May to force foreign students to leave the UK after they graduate.
The Chancellor’s reported quashing of the Home Secretary’s scheme followed protests from firms that they rely on talented graduates to provide specialist skills.
It fuelled tensions between the pair widely seen as deadly rivals. Mr Osborne’s intervention emerged in an FT report described as “heavily briefed” by one Whitehall official, although the Treasury insisted it was speculation. Allies of Mrs May made clear she had not dropped the idea, however, saying no decision had been taken.
Mark Hilton, Head of Immigration Policy at business lobby group London First, said the proposal had already created the damaging impression that the UK - and London - was becoming less open to international talent.
“Education is a £10bn export market for the UK and with rhetoric like this some in government seem intent on making us look like we’ve pulled in the welcome mat,” he said.
He added student numbers from core markets like India had fallen recently because they were choosing other countries.
Mrs May said in the Commons on Monday that in one year 121,000 students came to the UK but only 50,000 left. By the 2020s, there would be 600,000 overseas students arriving each year, she added.
Her proposal, repeating a pledge from the 2010 Conservative manifesto “that students must usually leave the country and reapply if they want to switch to another course or apply for a work permit”, was seen by some critics as a bid to bolster support on the party’s right. The universities minister David Willetts and inventor Sir James Dyson were among critics who said it would backfire.
