Recommendation 76

During our inquiry a number of witnesses, including Minister Lochhead, spoke to us about the importance to prospective international students of making sure that immigration policies—which are reserved to the UK Government—are as streamlined and as simple as possible.176 In addition, the RSE Young Academy of Scotland made the point to us that the perception—not just the reality—of UK immigration policies was also important and that factors like Brexit can play into those perceptions.177 As background, the ‘Student visa’, which replaced the ‘Tier 4’ student visa,178 is the primary visa in the UK for visiting international students.179