'Don’t worry about net migration – worry about the young entrepreneurs we are turning away' - Philip Salter writes for Conservative Home

Director of TEN, Philip Salter, writes on the findings of their latest report, Made in the UK: Unlocking the Door to International Entrepreneurs, in Conservative Home: 

Long gone are the days when Britain ruled the waves, but there’s life in the old world yet. Just consider our universities, which remain some of the best on the planet. However, though we can attract the world’s top students we have an immigration system that boots many of them out the moment they finish studying.

Bewilderingly, students are included in the net migration figures. So today’s confirmation of the inevitable failure of David Cameron’s target of keeping net migration to the tens of thousands can only do more harm to the case for the benefits of immigration. A sizeable chunk of the additional 260,000 people in our country are students, with the latest figures showing that there were 222,941 study visas granted, including dependants, in the year ending September 2014.

Read the full article here.

The survey found that the UK is losing its talented international students with entrepreneurial ambitions to other countries. Although nearly half, 42%, of international students intend to start up their own business following graduation, only 33% of these students, or 14% of the total, want to do so in the UK.