Home secretary defends government stance on student visas

Home secretary Theresa May has defended the government’s immigration policy, saying that she met with representatives of the Russell Group and Universities UK when the government was developing its policy on reducing abuse of the student visa system.

In a House of Commons debate on 11 February, May said: “We have a student visa system that ensures that the brightest and the best students—those who are coming to an institution that is genuinely providing education, to study a genuine degree course or educational course, and are intending to be students and not to use the visa to work—can come to the UK, while we are driving out abuse.”