Cobra Beer founder Lord Bilimoria explains the immigration policy behind Britain’s curry crisis

 

Since they first started becoming popular in the 1940s, curry houses have become a staple of Britain’s towns and evenings out.

 

The nation’s favourite cuisine was adopted and then adapted from its spicy, South Asian roots to suit our more sensitive tastebuds. Along the way, it has spawned an industry worth £4bn and, directly and indirectly, employs an estimated 100,000 people.

 

But the sector is also in the grip of a crisis. To date this year an estimated 65 curry restaurants have had to close, at a rate of more than two a week. A significant driver of these closures, according to Cobra Beer, has been a skills shortage in the industry and the UK’s immigration policy.

 

Sold in more than 98 per cent of the UK’s 7,000 licensed curry restaurants (there are 5,000 unlicensed venues, making an industry total of around 12,000), Cobra Beer is well-placed to sound the alarm bell for a meal that has become as British as it is Indian.

 

Cobra’s founder, the House of Lords crossbencher and chancellor of the University of Birmingham Lord Bilimoria, believes immigration policy changes introduced in April will only drive the sector into more of a decline.

 

“Curry is one the best value cuisines,” Lord Bilimoria insisted in an interview with City A.M. “Restaurants struggled in the recession but they managed to remain resilient.” Now, however, that resilience is being tested afresh.

 

Following the April immigration changes, eateries will need to offer salaries of £35,000 for skilled workers from outside the EU who have been living in the UK for less than 10 years if they want to settle here for good.

 

As chefs fall under the government’s “shortage occupation” list, this minimum salary threshold is lowered to £29,750. On the other hand, this exemption is nullified if the restaurant offers any takeaway services – which of course includes most curry houses.

 

​“It’s almost as though we’re an ungrateful country,” Lord Bilimoria said, shaking his head in disbelief.

 

Without the ability to bring chefs in from South Asia, the rate of restaurant closures is unlikely to improve. Even pursuing a policy of training more local apprentices would not fill the skills gap quickly enough. “It takes almost seven years to train a professional curry chef,” Lord Bilimoria explained.

 

The solution, he believes, would be to allow for immigrant chefs to have a lower salary threshold, at around the average rate in the profession of £20,000.

 

Sadly, his vision for UK immigration policy, the subject of a “terrible” argument during the referendum debate, is unlikely to change quickly enough.

 

The full article is available here

EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report)

15 June 2016

Motion to Take Note

Moved by Lord Boswell of Aynho

That this House takes note of the Report from the European Union Committee The EU referendum and EU reform

Lord Bilimoria:

My Lords, there is a great deal I do not like about the European Union. No one knows who their MEP is. MEPs have no connection with the people they represent and are not accountable or representative. The EU Parliament moving from Brussels to Strasbourg every month for a week is a ridiculous waste of time and money. The euro is a complete failure—one size will never fit all. It is surviving ​only because it is more difficult to dismantle than keep together. I used to think we lost out on tourism and business visitors by not being in Schengen; now we are fortunate, given the migration crisis and security concerns, not to be in Schengen. I am a true Eurosceptic.

However, given a choice, I have no hesitation in saying that we should remain in the EU. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and his committee for producing their reports. I came to this county from India as a 19 year-old student and I have seen the immense change in this country from the time I arrived in the early 1980s, when it was the sick man of Europe, to today being the envy of Europe. The transformation is remarkable. Back in the 1980s, this country had a glass ceiling. Today it is a country of aspiration and opportunity where anyone can get to the top, regardless of race, religion or background. We have seen the highest cumulative GDP growth rate in the European Union since the single market began in 1993. For the United Kingdom it is 62% versus Germany, for example, at 35%. On this point alone, the well-known economist David Smith said in the Sunday Times:

“Britain succeeds in the EU: we’d be daft to leave it”.

This country, with its flexible labour market and open economy, has given me the opportunity to build Cobra Beer from scratch. When we first exported Cobra we chose European Union countries to export to because it was so easy. Now we have exported to more than 40 countries.

I cannot believe that Vote Leave could put out a TV advertisement that states the UK pays £350 million into Europe every week, and then states the purported health spending that this could result in. This is complete nonsense. It should have been taken down by the Advertising Standards Authority. The Vote Leave campaign cannot even get its sums right. We get a rebate from Europe that brings it down to about £150 million a week. If we leave, our current growth rate of 2% a year might flatline or even go into recession. That would be a drop of well over £30 billion —four times our net contribution to the EU.

This country has to wake up and smell the coffee. The Vote Leave campaign is based on a number of bogus claims. Brexit bogus claim number one is about loss of sovereignty. What loss of sovereignty? We are in the EU, but not in the euro; we are in the EU, but not part of Schengen; we are in the EU, but we drink our beer in pints not litres; we are in the EU, but measure our roads in miles not kilometres. No one can tell this country what to do. We have total sovereignty.

Brexit bogus claim number two concerns the lack of democracy. There are elected Members of the EU Parliament. The EU Commission is appointed by elected representatives from each country. We are having a referendum on EU membership right now and we can pull out of the EU whenever we want. Where is the lack of democracy?

Brexit bogus claim number three: Vote Leave says EU regulations cost British businesses £600 million a week. Where has this figure come from? It is completely subjective to try to quantify the impact of red tape. The claims are made by people who have never run a business in their life. Of course there are unpopular regulations, but there are good regulations that protect ​workers’ rights. I can assure noble Lords that when you run a global business, as I have, you do not thinking about EU red tape, you just get on with it. The biggest barriers to business are the UK’s own overly complex, vast and continually increasing taxation, housing and planning laws. These are self-inflicted by the Government of the day and are nothing to do with the European Union whatever.

Brexit bogus claim number four concerns migration. Immigration has benefited this country over the decades. EU immigration has been continually demeaned and vilified by Brexiteers. There are 3 million EU migrants working in the UK. This has built up over a number of years and we know how hard-working they are. For example, surveys show that the Polish community is respected and appreciated by the British public and seen as contributing to our country. We have one of the highest levels of employment on record. We have one of the lowest unemployment levels ever seen—in fact, in practical terms we have full employment, despite 3 million EU migrants. Where is the problem? There are a few bad apples trying to take advantage of our welfare state, but, on the whole, EU migrants have helped us to become the fastest growing country in the EU and they contribute to this economy five times more than they take out.

People talk about a drain on public services. If we need 3 million people to boost our economy, our Government have failed if they have not been able to provide the necessary accompanying public services. In fact, our public services would collapse without the contribution of those 3 million people. Our country needs migration due to our ageing population. Misleading nonsense is proliferating from the Vote Leave campaign about immigration, which states that if we leave the EU we will be able to take in immigrants from elsewhere. Michael Gove has said that he wants to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands. We have net migration of 330,000 now, of which half—about 180,000—is from outside the EU. Even if EU immigration stops dead on Brexit, we still have well over the tens of thousands. Their argument is illogical and the public should not fall for it.

Brexit bogus claim number five is that we could negotiate more trade deals with other countries and we would be in control of our destiny if we left the EU—that we could engage in trade deals with India and America. We are the second-largest recipient of inward investment in Europe. Some 60% of companies operating in the EU have their headquarters in the UK. Would they continue to if we leave? Of course not. Our inward investment would dry up and London would no longer be the number one financial centre in the world. Other countries see the UK as the gateway to Europe. As a professor from the Harvard Business School, of which I am an alumnus, said, we would be mad to leave the EU. If we were to have a deal like those of Switzerland or Norway, we would still have to agree to free movement of people and we would still have to contribute—maybe not £8 billion, but maybe £4 billion.

The Brexiteers tell us that those advising against leaving the EU should not be listened to: “Who are they to tell us? They’ve been wrong in the past”. We do ​not live in a vacuum. We are an integrated member of the global economy. We are not a superpower, but a global power—we sit at the top table of the world: the UN Security Council, the G7, G8, G20, NATO and the EU. If we leave, we jeopardise our standing in the world and our future investment. I did not think I would ever quote the Prime Minister’s wife, but she said:

“I want my children growing up with the advantage of starting their careers in a country that is a big fish in a big pond, leading the way in Europe”.

If we leave the EU we will be a tiddler in an ocean.

Brexit bogus claim number six is that the EU is in a mess and our share of trade with it has been falling. That is quite obvious because we are trading more with emerging markets, but the EU still accounts for 44% of our exports and 55% of our imports. It is too big to jeopardise.

Brexit bogus claim number seven is that there will be further integration, leading to a superstate, and we will be dragged into EU bailouts. There will never be a united states of Europe. I come from India, a country that is a true federal state. Europe will never look like that. The Prime Minister’s negotiations have ensured that we are not committed to further unification and bailouts in the future.

Brexit bogus claim number eight is that there will be an EU army that will subsume the British Army. This is complete fantasy. This will never ever happen. It is also claimed that peace in Europe has been brought about by NATO. It has been brought about by NATO and the European Union.

Brexit bogus claim number nine is that Turkey will become a member of the EU and we will not be able to stop 75 million people coming here. Turkey is light years away from joining the European Union—this is scaremongering.

Lastly, Brexit bogus claim number 10 is that the EU is an economic mess, with youth unemployment up to 50% in countries such as Spain, Italy and France. These countries have been in a mess since 2008-09, when the financial crisis began. We, on the other hand, because of our flexibility and control of our destiny, have thrived. The fate of these EU countries has not prevented us succeeding and getting our economy back on track. Even if the economies of Europe absolutely implode and Europe breaks up, I would rather we were at that table trying to help out and knowing what is going on. As has been said, I do not want to jeopardise our own United Kingdom in a Brexit situation, where Scotland might want to leave. Then there is the huge number of years it has taken to get to the present Northern Ireland situation, which would be jeopardised.

Brexiteers try to say that they are the ones who are proud of Britain. I am proud of Britain—a country that has given me everything, that is not isolationist, selfish or blinkered. What speaks more about a country than anything else is its spirit and values. British people are respected around the world for their values. If we Brexit, we will be sleep-walking over the cliffs of Dover into huge uncertainty and instability. Even Brexiteers are saying that it will take years to renegotiate our position with Europe. A protracted period of ​negotiations, a possible recession, the loss of jobs—we have a fragile recovery and huge debt. We have a current account deficit and a budget deficit. Why risk all this when we do not have to? It is far wiser and far more productive for us to try to reform the EU from within. Why destroy the growth we have achieved? Why risk our standing as the fifth largest economy, with the highest growth rate in the EU and the largest amount of investment in the EU?

There is an African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together”. We are in control of our destiny and we have our sovereignty. I conclude with a very short poem—my favourite poem—written by the Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, which is so pertinent to what we are speaking about:

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”.

Lord Bilimoria: UK should welcome people from overseas

The Indian-born peer is exasperated by official policy on foreigners studying and working in the UK

As a 19-year-old in India in 1981, Karan Bilimoria was unusual in wanting to study in the UK. Many of his contemporaries were headed for the US. He remembers them asking: “What are you doing going to Britain? It’s a loser of a country.” Family and friends told him that if he stayed on in the UK after qualifying as an accountant, he would never amount to anything. He was a foreigner — and Britain was riven with prejudice.

Did he amount to anything? The 53-year-old Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea — chancellor of the University of Birmingham, honorary fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and founder of Cobra Beer, which supplies 97 per cent of the UK’s licensed Indian restaurants — thinks he probably did.

His friends were not wrong about the UK of the early 1980s. “The Britain I came to was the sick man of Europe. It was a country that had no respect in the world economy,” he says. And while he did not personally experience the prej­udice he had been warned about, when he trained as an accountant at what is now EY, there was only one Indian partner. “And they said it was because he had an English wife,” he says.

But in the years after he arrived as he was making his way from accountancy to a law degree at Cambridge university, the UK changed. The old barriers were swept away, and not just for Indian immigrants. “If you hadn’t gone to the right school and the right university, many career paths were limited,” he says. “I saw that all change in front of my eyes, and I put that down to Margaret Thatcher. I saw her transform this country into a country that economically was going places.”

For many years, he was a member of the Conservative party. At one time, he even thought of attempting to become a Conservative MP. But he resigned his membership some years ago. He sits in the House of Lords as an independent cross-bencher. He is a critic of the Conservatives’ policies on immigration and foreign students and is particularly fierce about Theresa May, the home secretary.

We are sitting in the meeting room of Cobra’s offices overlooking an autumn sun-dappled square in central London. Lord Bilimoria is in a smart dark suit, a paisley handkerchief peeking out of his jacket pocket, but the young staff bustling around are casually dressed. The place looks more like an advertising agency than a beer company headquarters.

What are they all doing? There is a tele­phone sales team selling beer to Indian restaurants. When the area managers meet up, they do it here. “We have the most authoritative database of all the Indian restaurants . . . which restaurants are opening and closing. So this is where all that happens.”

The company owes its start to something Lord Bilimoria did not like when he arrived in the UK: gassy beer. He started brewing Cobra as a more palat­able option in India. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first bottle being imported into the UK.

He may have been a nervous immigrant to the UK, but his Zoroastrian Parsi family back home, while not wealthy, were distinguished military officers. His grandfather was one of the first Indians at Sandhurst. His father was a general. A cousin was chief of the Indian navy.

Where did the interest in beer come from? There were some family precedents: his maternal great-grandfather ran a liquor business near Hyderabad.

He relaxes as he tells the story. His accent is posh English, with the occasional Indian inflection. He swings a foot up to cross his legs, a flash of bright red sock matching his cuff links. It is easy to see his story as one of untrammelled success, but Cobra came close to collapsing three times.

The first was in 1998 when Tandoori Magazine, a trade title in which he had a 45 per cent stake, criticised service in Indian restaurants. Lord Bilimoria had no hand in the article, but the restaurants decided to boycott Cobra. It took a year to persuade them to buy his beer again. He had to cut staff numbers from 120 to 17. “We had to make awful, tough decisions just to survive.”

Lord Bilimoria is a big admirer of Mr Modi. “I think that he is a breath of fresh air in terms of the things he’s saying, the initiatives he’s started, whether it’s Clean India — huge, huge requirement there — whether it’s Make In India, encouraging manufacturing. He’s set a target for manufacturing. I think we need to do the same over here.”

He admires Mr Modi’s speaking skills too. “He’s a brilliant orator. If you hear Prime Minister Modi speak in Hindi, I would go so far as to say he’s one of the top four orators in the world today.”

Who are the other three? “Archbishop Desmond Tutu is absolutely superb. Bill Clinton is brilliant and Tony Blair at his best is fantastic.”

Ten years later, and growing fast, Cobra needed investment and agreed to Diageo, the drinks conglomerate, taking a substantial minority stake with a full sale five years later. The due diligence was done and Lord Bilimoria went on holiday, expecting to come back and sign the deal. While he was away, he got a call. “They said, ‘The deal’s off, we’ve got cold feet and we don’t want to go ahead’.”

Luckily, he had a Plan B, a bank loan. Days after the money arrived, Lehman Brothers went bust. His bank told him it would not have lent him the money if he had asked for it after that. “It was that close.”

As the financial crisis bit, a hedge fund investor in Cobra insisted he put the company up for sale. This was near-collapse number three. Lord Bilimoria calls it “the most painful process at the worst possible time”. Instead, Molson Coors, the North American beer company, which brews in the UK at Burton-on-Trent, agreed to a joint venture, which has given Cobra stability and, he says, profitability.

He devotes much of his energy to supporting foreign students. He finds it an infuriating task. Higher education is one of Britain’s great export industries — “except we don’t send goods out there; we bring students into the country” — and the Conservative government is making it harder for them.

He has just heard that six Indian students with places at Cranfield School of Management, where he also studied, have had their UK visa applications refused. “How ridiculous is that?” Students who come to the UK establish life-long links with the country, becoming its champions and supporters, he says.

He blames Ms May for her hostility both to foreign students and to valuable, legal immigrants. “She is on a rampage. I have said this and I will say it time and again: she is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration.”

Ms May, he says, tried to end foreign graduates’ already limited ability to stay on to work. “She goes and makes a statement before the [2015 UK] elections: I want every foreign student to leave the day they graduate. [Chancellor] George Osborne had to step in and say, we will not have that in the manifesto, we’re not going to do that. But this is how rabid she is.”

He is calmer about the House of Lords. It should be smaller, but it should not be elected, he says. “The more I have studied it the more I realised how lucky we are to have this institution. You’ve got world-class people there, world leaders in their fields and you’ve got that amazing input that scrutinises legislation, challenges government, debates.

“In an elected house you’d never get those people, they wouldn’t stand for election. You’d get people who were rejects from the House of Commons.”

Cobra’s crusading Lord bites back

 

Karan Bilimoria’s family background makes it almost perverse that he did not take up a military career. But he brings the same commitment and determination to his mission to help forge Britain’s future with the aid of Indian talent that his relatives brought to their distinguished service in the Indian army.

He’s a proud Parsi who gave the world Cobra beer, the favourite tipple accompanying Britain’s favourite food—curry.

Lord Bilimoria’s father, Lieutenant General Faridoon Bilimoria—popularly known as ‘General Billy’—was the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Central Army Command of the Indian Army who also served as aide de camp to the first Indian president, Rajendra Prasad, and commanded the 2/5 Gurkha Rifles during the Bangladesh liberation war. He later went to review the work of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, recommending the recall of the force in 1990 and thus ending India’s military engagement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. Lord Bilimoria’s paternal grandfather, Nasservanji Bilimoria, was one of the first Indians to be commissioned as an officer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

As a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords, Karan Bilimoria’s primary focus today is to modify Britain’s counter-productive immigration policy which is jeopardising the country’s economic future and putting at risk the long-term relationship with India, the source of so much talent which has fed Britain’s professional, business and academic firmament.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has taken it on as a ‘personal mission of hers to destroy the country’s reputation,’ he says. ‘It’s a very difficult situation for Cameron. Theresa May has really taken this on in a very aggressive manner both during the coalition and now, when she’s been re-appointed, she seems to have taken it up into another gear. Though it’s Conservative policy, from what I hear it’s very much driven by her and I don’t think for a moment that a lot of other cabinet ministers are on side but it’s her department—that’s my personal view.’

For Lord Bilimoria, 53, it’s personal because she has seen fit to reverse one of his achievements in the field—instituting the two-year work visa for graduates once they had finished their courses, which was already in place in Scotland and which he helped engineer with cross-party support for the measure.

This perceived hostile attitude is turning away young Indians from educating their children here, even though they themselves have benefited from it.

The effect has been immediate and since 2010 the number of Indian students coming to the UK has fallen by 50 per cent. But beyond that the May stance has helped fuel the rhetoric of the likes of Nigel Farage and the United Kingdom Independence Party which took about 14 per cent of the vote during the May general elections.

But even for Farage, some of the Home Secretary’s proposals were too far out and George Osborne, the Chancellor of Exchequer, had to step in when she demanded that all foreign students should leave the country the day they graduate—a suggestion that prompted such headlines in Indian newspapers as: ‘Take our money and Go.’

‘So she’s on a rampage against immigration as a whole, which tars illegal and good immigration with the same brush. She’s economically illiterate when it comes to immigration. She’s damaging our country; damaging our reputation and our economy.

‘One of Britain’s greatest elements of soft power is our universities and our universities are the best in the world, along with America. In terms of international standing, international academics make up to 30 per cent in Cambridge and Birmingham, where I am chancellor.

‘The important thing with foreign students is not just the £14 billion that they bring in but that the English students are enriched by the experience of mixing with their foreign contemporaries. And when they go back they become ambassadors for Britain, they will do business for Britain, they will come back to visit Britain many times and it’s through these links over generations that you build up trade, business, culture and influence.

‘In terms of the soft power, one out of seven world leaders has been educated at a British university, including the two most recent Greek finance ministers,’ Lord Bilimoria adds with a chuckle. India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, attended both Oxford and Cambridge.

The Australian Minister of Education publicly thanked Theresa May on a visit to Britain for her immigration policy, which had led to a boom in the number of Indian students travelling Down Under to study and, to add insult to injury, the French have announced an intention to double their number of Indian students by 2020.

For Lord Bilimoria, the problems with untrammelled immigration go back to Tony Blair’s decision to remove exit checks on Britain’s borders in 1998.

‘It was a foolish thing to do because we know who’s come to the country but we don’t know who’s left. If you don’t know who’s left you don’t know who’s overstayed—you’ve lost control of your borders.’ And he points out that the technology is there to re-institute the system with a string of Indian techno-companies standing by to do the work.

The noble peer led a debate in the House of Lords in 2012 on how religious and ethnic minorities contribute to Britain—26 peers of different backgrounds and religious communities spoke, saying that Britain would not be where it is today were it not for the contributions of those people.

‘We’re proud to be less than one per cent of the world’s population but we’re four per cent of the world’s economy. We’re the fifth largest economy in the world and we’re the second largest inward-investment destination in the world after the US. Forty-five per cent of that is financial services and the City of London is number one in the world—would it be number one if it were not for the amazing talent in the City? And the governor of the Bank of England is a Canadian—without that foreign input we wouldn’t be where we are today.’

He notes that the next President of the Royal Society will be Nobel laureate Sir Venkatraman (Venki) Ramakrishnan.

Sir Venki studies how genetic information is translated by the ribosome to make proteins, and the action of antibiotics on this process. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009 with Tom Steitz and Ada Yonath and was awarded a knighthood in 2012.

Sir Venki is currently Deputy Director of the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology (LMB) and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. There have been 60 presidents of the Royal Society since it was founded in 1660, including Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, and Ernest Rutherford.

Amartya Sen has achieved the seemingly impossible as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and All Souls, Oxford. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 and Bharat Ratna in 1999 for his work in welfare economics. He was also awarded the inaugural Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize in recognition of his work on welfare economics in February at a reception at the Royal Academy.

‘Sen could easily go to America. We need people like that—instead of attracting them you’re driving them away and this is sending the wrong message.’

Britain’s wealthiest businessmen are also of Indian origin—the Hindujas and the Mittels are worth more than £22 billion between the two families. But there are likely to be fewer of them following in their footsteps, given the hostile visa policy now being pursued. And will there be such follow-on success for companies like Tata—already having grave difficulties getting visas for its staff—which now has the nation’s best export record through Jaguar-LandRover?

Apart from campaigning at the national political level for a change of heart, Lord Bilimoria is also working to rescue a street-corner business which is suffering grievously through an inability to bring in qualified staff from the subcontinent: the curry restaurant.

His Cobra beer company has launched an initiative whereby Michelin-starred Indian chefs are made available to coach less experienced curry chefs in restaurants all over the country, to raise their skills in the absence of the ability to hire staff from abroad.

‘The Indian restaurant business is two-thirds run by Bangladeshis. Those restaurants need skilled chefs from South Asia and they can’t get them because of the immigration rules. Now how ridiculous is that—when you have a cuisine which is the nation’s favourite?

‘When I give talks around the country I ask the audience: “How many of you love curry and eat curry regularly?”, and every hand in the audience will go up.

‘You want that cuisine, you love that cuisine and the reason it’s a favourite is because restaurateurs have come round to every village in every corner of the country as strangers, opened up restaurants and put back into the country and made curry the favourite food of this country.

‘On the other hand, you don’t allow them to bring in the skilled chefs that they need. It’s so wrong and it’s an ungrateful nation, quite frankly, to have that attitude.

‘So this is the message you send, so it’s absolutely damaging. It’s damaging, harmful and it’s wrong.’

The original article can be found here

 

“Theresa May is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration” – Lord Bilimoria

 

Cobra Beer tycoon Lord Karan Bilimoria has described Home Secretary Theresa May as “economically illiterate” when it comes to immigration and expressed serious concerns at the government’s treatment of everyone from curry chefs and nurses to international students.

 

In an interview with the UKAsian, Lord Bilimoria – who was recently appointed President of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) – reiterated calls for overseas students to be taken out of the government’s net migration targets.

 

The life peer is one of a string of top entrepreneurs who have warned that the government’s controversial crackdown on international students – including the scrapping of the Post Study Work (PSW) visa and draconian restrictions on working – coupled with the often venomous rhetoric against immigration is harming the British economy and damaging perceptions of Britain abroad.

The Hyderabad-born millionaire was particularly scathing about Mrs May whose time in office has seen a dramatic decline in the number of international students from outside the European Union as well as such measures as the “Go Home or Face Arrest” vans in London.

 

Many international students – and other migrants from outside the EU – say they are being unfairly targeted as the government struggles to stem the flow of migrants from Europe.

 

The result of which is that an increasing number of non-EU migrants are finding it ever-more difficult to travel to the UK or remain here.

 

Under new measures announced by Mrs May, international students will be required to leave Britain as soon as their studies are complete.  Foreign nurses, meanwhile, will be required to earn more than £30,000 if they are to remain in the UK.  And the list goes on.

 

The UKAsian caught Lord Bilimoria in an impassioned mood.

 

On his own experiences as an international student in the UK:

 

I’ve been speaking about international student affairs particularly with regards to immigration now for a while.  I was an international student myself when I came over to this country as a 19-year-old for my higher education and I know what it’s like to be an international student in the UK.  I know how valued being an international student is for someone coming from abroad and how British higher education is regarded overseas.  It’s very prestigious and very special and it’s great to have the opportunity to study here.  However, I also know how expensive it is to study in Britain.  Not only the cost of the course but the living expenses.  I had to get a number of scholarships.  For example I’m a Tata scholar and I managed to raise the rest of the money – some of them were loans, some of them were grants, some was from family.  So when the government allowed students to work while they were studying that was a huge boost because not only does it give students the work experience that is so vital, they earn some money to help pay for their education.

 

Then in 2007 the Post Study Work (PSW) visa was brought out in England and Wales.  It was an excellent measure because it’s a huge advantage for a foreign student to have the ability to work for two years, to gain that work experience to build the relationships with Britain and to earn some money to pay for the expense they have incurred in gaining that education.  Sadly the coalition government in 2010 reversed everything.  They’ve brought in the ability to work but in a very difficult way where you are given a few months to try and find a job after you graduate.  You also have to earn a certain salary and get a company to sponsor you.  The hurdles are so much that very few international students are able to stay on and work.

 

On public attitudes:

 

Unfortunately this is completely out of synch with what the British public feel.  There have been surveys done which show very conclusively that an overwhelming majority of the public feel that international students should be allowed to stay on and work after graduation.  So I feel very strongly that the government and in particular this Home Secretary Theresa May have got it absolutely wrong on immigration and particularly with regards to international students.

 

On “Bad Immigration”

 

Illegal immigration – which we see everyday – needs to be handled and cracked down on very strongly and I think everyone would agree on that.  However it’s the good immigration that is suffering because all immigrants are being tarred with the same brush and that is wrong and it is harming our country and harming our economy.  For years I’ve been telling this government, bring back exit checks.  Tony Blair removed exit checks in 1998 so in the intervening years we know who’s come into the country but we don’t know who has left.  So how do you know if someone has overstayed.  How can you track down someone who has overstayed if you don’t know if they have left?  It’s basic because it’s a simple technology that is in place in most countries around the world.  In fact there are several excellent Indian IT companies based here in Britain who could provide the technology for it where every passport – EU and non-EU – should be scanned when someone comes into the country and every passport is scanned when people leave the country.  Now the government is finally saying that they will bring exit checks but I don’t think they are bringing it in as comprehensive a manner as is necessary.

 

If we bring in rigorous exit checks we would have much more control over our borders.  That’s the first thing I would do if I was the Home Secretary or was in charge of immigration.  The next thing I would do is to clamp down on illegal immigration in a very strong manner because that needs to be worked on.  Bogus colleges, need to be shut down.  But why should our 150 universities, of which many are the best in the world, be tarred with the same brush?

 

On the rise of UKIP:

 

There are so many misconceptions about immigration and that is why the immigration rhetoric of this government and in particular Mrs May, which unfortunately the Prime Minister seems to back up.  It’s so damaging because the perception is put out that all immigration is bad.  And of course Nigel Farage completely fuelled this in the run up to the General Election.  But where is Nigel Farage today?  He couldn’t win his own parliamentary seat.  UKIP won a grand total of ONE seat.  But the danger is that they had 13 percent of the vote.  13 percent of the people of this country subscribed to his rhetoric.  That is frightening.  And that rhetoric fuelled the behaviour of people like Theresa May.  And that is wrong and dangerous.  Good immigration has helped this country for decades.  Britain would not be the 5th largest economy in the world today, Britain would not be one of the most successful countries in the world were it not for immigration.  That is a fact.

 

On those vans and those bonds…

 

In every facet of British life – be it economics, academia, business, sport, culture – immigration has helped this country to be where it is today.  But now this immigration rhetoric is damaging all that good immigration and the amazing contribution it has made to this country.  When you say things like we are going to introduce a £3000 bond for people visiting from South Asia and Africa, it sets off alarm bells everywhere.  I travel to India several times a year on business and I know how damaging it was even though the measure was withdrawn straight away.  Then, we had those vans going around London demanding illegal immigrants to go home.  Even Nigel Farage disagreed with that one!  Then to tell international students to get out the moment they finish their degrees.  Even George Osborne had to come in and shut Mrs May down, saying that would not be in the Conservative’s manifesto.

 

Now if you look at the good immigration, there are a huge number of international students in our universities.  I’m the chancellor of the University of Birmingham.  We have a very high proportion of international students.  Then you have the academics.  In our top universities, 30% of all academics are foreign.  Without that we would not have the excellence that we have at our universities.  Who is going to be the next president of the Royal Society, the most eminent position in all of academia?  Sir Venki Ramakrishnan who is a Nobel Laureate from Trinity College Cambridge.  We need people like that.  He could easily be in America.  In fact, we are competing with American universities like Harvard which have endowments running into the billions of dollars.  Our higher education spending is nothing compared to that.  And on of top of that we have to fight immigration rules such as those brought in by Mrs May.

 

More misconceptions…

 

The number of South Asian students to the UK has fallen by half in the last five years.  Foreign students bring in 14 billion pounds a year to the British economy.  It’s one of our biggest exports.  So the financial aspect is vital.  Then you have the enrichment of our own students with the experience of living and studying and working alongside foreign students.   Then you have the life-long links that are forged.  That is one of our biggest elements of soft power.  One in seven world leaders at any given time have been educated at a British university.  It’s very powerful soft power, people who have been enriched by our values.  When it comes to business, again the rhetoric is about “Eastern Europeans coming and taking our jobs”.  Firstly, as long as somebody is paying the minimum wage and the company is operating legally, what is the problem?  Eastern Europeans are allowed to come and work here in the same way hundreds of thousands of our people are allowed to go and work in Europe.  It’s a reciprocal arrangement.  Surveys have also shown that Polish migrants are the most respected by Britons, followed by Indians.  A majority of Britons appreciate migrants.  That is the reality.

 

On the Benefit System…

 

Of course there are some people – both EU and non-EU – who take advantage of our welfare state and our welfare state is generous and that is wrong.  So the reforms that the Prime Minister expects from the EU are absolutely right.  But those who exploit the system constitute a tiny minority.  The vast majority of the immigrants who come to this country are hard working contributors.  They do not draw on the NHS because they tend to be younger and healthier, they do not draw on welfare and they are actually net contributors to this economy.  There’s no question that the benefits system needs reform.  Britain has less than one percent of the world’s population and yet we have four percent of the world’s economy.  We also have seven percent of the world’s welfare spending.  The European Union has seven percent of the world population, 25 percent of the world’s economy and more than half the world’s welfare spending.  This is unsustainable, from Britain’s point of view and from the European Union’s point of view.  We have a welfare state that has to be restructured.  To that extent I subscribe to Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to create a system that is fair and helps those who need the help but on the other hand does not provide a benefits trap where it’s often better financially to not work than it is.  That cannot be right.

 

Immigration…why it’s important…

 

This country requires a lot of immigration at every level.  From an economic point of view, if you look at the city of London, many people don’t realize that we are the number two inward investment destination in the world.  45% of that is financial services because we have the City of London which is the number 1 financial centre in the world.  If you look at who is working in the city of London some of the biggest names in the City are international.  They come from all over the world.  That international talent, the best of the best in the world is what makes the City the top financial centre on the planet.  If you take manufacturing, Jaguar Land Rover – owned by India’s TATA – has been a huge success story.  Tata bought it in 2008 when nobody wanted to touch the company and today their profits are greater than the price they paid for it.  These are the companies that power Britain.  And then you hear about companies that have trouble getting visas for their foreign workers.  That’s wrong.  We need to attract the best and the brightest from around the world.

I support a programme by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) called ‘SIRIUS’ which allows outstanding young graduates from around the world to come to the UK and set up their businesses here.  What a brilliant idea?  The respect that that creates for Britain as an investment destination is stupendous.

 

On what awaits foreign nurses…

 

I have spoken to heads of hospitals about this and they are flabbergasted.  They keep asking, ‘how can the government do this?  Without foreign nurses the NHS would collapse.’  And how inhuman is it that you ask a man or woman who works in a very noble, service-oriented, selfless profession which doesn’t pay much in the first place, to up and leave because they don’t meet a random salary requirement set by the Home Secretary?  It’s inhuman.  Those same heads of hospitals say that they have had to train these people and when they are booted out they will have to spend millions more to train new nurses as their replacements.  Where is the sense in that?
I have said this before and I will reiterate it, Theresa May is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration.

 

On how Cobra is helping…

 

We supply more than 98 percent of the curry restaurants in this country.  More than two thirds of them are run by Bangladeshis.  If you talk to the Bangladeshi Caterers Association or the industry as a whole, they are concerned that they are unable to bring in the skilled chefs they need from India and elsewhere in the sub-continent because immigration rules are so prohibitive.  The situation is mind-boggling.  I go around the country giving talks and British people talk about how much they love curry.  This is our national dish because true entrepreneurs have gone to High Streets across Britain, knowing no one, opening up businesses, developing business, gaining customers and taking the curry to everyone around this country.  Then you have a government which says, ‘Thank you very much, we love the curry but if you need skilled chefs to carry on your good work, you’re not allowed to get them’.  That’s just wrong.  This is why we’ve teamed up with some of the best chefs in this country, people like Atul Kochar, Alfred Prasad, Vivek Singh, Cyrus Todiwala, and Vineet Bhatia who are helping us now to provide lessons from their learning which they are sharing with restaurateurs around the country with workshops which Cobra Beer is funding.  Free of charge for restaurants so that these award-winning Michelin-starred chefs can share their best practice with any restaurant in the country.  It’s been popular with restaurateurs and we have a queue of restaurants lined up to attend these workshops.  So in our own small way we are helping the industry because we know they cannot get the skilled workers that they need from overseas from South Asia.

 

So the best thing could be if this government could get sensible about immigration.

Speaking about the appointment, Lord Bilimoria noted the excellence of the UK’s universities on the world stage and praised the significant contribution that international students provide to our economy and to Britain’s society as a whole.  As a previous international student to the UK, Lord Bilimoria is certainly well placed to represent the concerns of students travelling from abroad and he has vowed to represent all international students to the best of his ability.

Britain’s universities are amongst the finest in world, along with those found in the US, and international students make a vast contribution to the richness of student life in the UK, as well as to our economy – international students add £14 billion to the UK economy and make our higher education sector one of our largest and most successful exports. The strength of the UK’s higher education sector is clear to see on the world stage with one in every seven world leaders being educated in a UK university.

I am very pleased with all the work that UKCISA does to best represent the voice and mass of the international student body, particularly as I myself was an international student. I am enormously grateful to have been given the opportunity to lay down roots in the UK, where I found a second home, an open-armed welcome from the student community, and a chance to make an economic contribution to this country after I founded Cobra Beer. International students build generational long links with the UK, such as in my case where I was the third generation of both sides of my family to be educated here in Britain.

This appointment enables me to fully support the UKCISA manifesto and make a full commitment to speaking on behalf of Britain’s talented international student community in Westminster, in Whitehall, to the UK business community and around the world. In my new role I hope to represent our bright young people from overseas and to urge the government to reconsider its strategy towards those who have travelled from all over the world to learn in our world-class universities.

Britain urgently needs more skilled and talented graduates, yet its disparaging rhetoric towards immigrants among those in power, paired with our Home Secretary’s refusal to remove students from immigration targets, broadcasts the wrong message to those hoping to study here. As a result, we have seen members of the international student community turn its back on Britain in vast numbers. I aim to do all I can to turn this worrying trend around by promoting the huge benefits of studying in Britain’s great universities and pushing for talented and highly skilled students to be able to stay in Britain after graduation, through schemes like the two year post study work visa – which should be reintroduced. These measures will benefit international students, while strengthening the British economy and making Britain a hub for knowledge, skills and business.

The Chef Initiative campaign was announced by Cobra in response to the challenges faced by many in the curry industry, which have been exacerbated by a sharp decline in the number of highly-skilled chefs entering into the industry from abroad, as a way to give back to the ethnic restaurant community.  The campaign was unveiled at an event in London’s Cinnamon Kitchen, and was co-hosted by award-winning chef Vivek Singh – one of the six chefs leading the training sessions over the coming months.

The initiative will see workshops taking place across the country, which will be led by Alfred Prasad, former chef at Tamarind, Vivek Singh, The Cinnamon Club & Cinnamon Kitchen, Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL, Café Spice Namaste, Mehernosh Mody La Porte des Indes, Vineet Bhatia, Vineet Rosi, and Atul Kochhar, Benares.

 

Speaking at the launch, Lord Bilimoria said: ‘We know from speaking with many ethnic restaurants that there is a real shortage of skilled chefs in Britain, due in part to our rigid immigration laws, which is why we decided to co-ordinate a national skills-sharing initiative. With the support of some of Britain’s most distinguished restaurateurs, we hope to equip chefs up and down the country with vital knowledge and confidence to produce the highest quality, delicious food that the British people love.’

Vivek Singh, restauranteur and chef of The Cinnamon Club & Cinnamon Kitchen, said, ‘The Cobra Beer skills-sharing initiative is a fantastic programme to boost the ethnic restaurant community in Britain and I look forward to sharing my experiences with the participating chefs over the coming months.’

In the article, he put forward the case for implementing a coherent immigration policy that encouraged bright students to remain in the UK and explained the reasons why he is optimistic about Britain’s future.

Cobra beer founder Lord Bilimoria on Tories trying to be “nastier” than Ukip, and “economically illiterate” Theresa May

The crossbench peer and lager tycoon Karan Bilimoria lashes out at the government’s immigration rhetoric, calls our levels of defence spending “dangerous”, and questions Ed Miliband’s knowledge of business.

Considering most household name beers are centuries old, it comes as a surprise to me that it’s only the 25th anniversary of Cobra beer this year. That’s 26 years since Karan Bilimoria, then a 26-year-old graduate, became fed up with drinking gassy lagers when out for a curry, and decided to create something new.

“I came up with the idea at university,” he tells me. “It was very simple; I hated fizzy lagers and I loved English ale, real ale, and so I came up with the idea of a beer that would have the refreshment of a lager and the smoothness of an ale combined.”

After persuading the best brewmaster in India to create his new beer, and ditching the initial brand name “Panther” (it’s not pronounced the same throughout the world, and just wasn’t as “short, sharp and memorable” as“Cobra”), Bilimoria and his friend began delivering Cobra beer from the back of their “battered old Citroën deux chevaux called Albert”.

Now a crossbench peer and the owner of what has become one of the most globally popular beers, Bilimoria is concerned that students who wish to study in the UK are being deterred by anti-immigration rhetoric. He came to Britain in 1981 from India to study, and built a successful company. He fears that foreign talent is now being put off coming to Britain due to the government’s approach to immigration.

“I’ve found it really worrying, I’ve found it hugely damaging,” he tells me, shaking his head. “It has unfortunately been completely fuelled by Nigel Farage and Ukip, and it surprises me and worries me the following that they have in the polls…

“Unfortunately the Conservative party has jumped on this bandwagon, Theresa May the Home Secretary in particular, and instead of having a sensible approach to immigration, almost trying to compete with Ukip on immigration as to who can be the nastier one.

“It’s created a very negative approach to immigration, which is wrong, and I believe we should have a more balanced view on immigration, looking at all its aspects.”

He adds: “There is no way Britain would be where it is today without the contribution of the ethnic minority and religious communities going back over the decades. And here is this picture being painted that immigration is bad, immigration is damaging Britain.”

Bilimoria despairs of the Home Secretary Theresa May’s attitude towards migrants. It was her department that trialled the loathed “Go Home” vans, fiddled around with visa rules, and mooted that international students should be sent home immediately after finishing their university courses in Britain.

“In countries like India, you hear ‘does Britain want us?’ The number of Indian students has plummeted… the rhetoric has been very damaging; it’s created this damaging impression abroad.

“And Theresa May, I believe is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration. When it comes to business. Look at the City of London, we would not be the Number 1 global financial centre if it were not for the international expertise that works in the City of London.

“Yet you hear of firms that have visa issues bringing in staff. The Indian restaurant industry has trouble bringing in chefs, because of the changes in the visa rules… Here’s an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people, billions of pounds to the economy, contributes to the taxes, produces food that this country loves – we’re a nation of curryholics – and yet we thank the industry by not allowing them to bring in the skilled staff that they need.”

“And they [the government] are really out of tune with what the public wants on this matter. Foreign students should be encouraged to stay on and start their businesses over here. You poll the public, and they will say of course they should be allowed to start their businesses here. Look at me.

“It’s very damaging, it’s very short-sighted.”

Yet Bilimoria also has strong words for the Labour party. “I don’t believe Ed Miliband understands business,” he says. “I don’t believe business has been a priority for him, that’s been demonstrated through the lack of mentioning it in major speeches, and through the way he’s tried now to demonstrate he’s pro-business by completely showing again a lack of understanding of business.”

The peer is particularly scathing about Miliband’s focus on zero-hours contracts. “Yes, zero-hours contracts is an issue, but making it the major plank of the major political debate that they had? It’s important to create jobs. Yes, you never want zero-hour contracts to be abused. But you never hear him talk about job creation, wealth creation, which is the most important thing.

“I’m also very critical of the current government,” he continues. “With defence, I really think they should commit to the 2 per cent NATO commitment. It’s negligent to have an army now that is so small; it’s dangerous in today’s world. Whether it’s the Russian situation, Isil, Middle Eastern situation, and who knows what’s going to come next? I [also] criticise this government for under-investing in higher education. We underfund our universities by half what the United States does, below the EU average, and below the OECD average. We should be investing more in R&D and innovation.”

As founding chairman of the UK-India Business Council, Bilimoria has joined various prime ministers’ trade delegations to India. He has accompanied Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron on such visits. He reveals that in a meeting ahead of his trip with Cameron, he warned him to be more positive about what Britain has to offer:

“I said to David Cameron in the last briefing meeting before we went out: ‘Come on, shout from the rooftops about all our amazing capabilities that we don’t appreciate in our own country, and this message has to be communicated within the country to give us the confidence of what we’re doing and never taking it for granted, but also for the outside world’.

“I never want anyone to think of Britain, as they did in India when I was a teenager, as a loser country and the Sick Man of Europe and a has-been. We are a country that always should be at the top table of the world, and always should be at the forefront, the cutting-edge of innovation and creativity.”

So in spite of such negativity from our politicians, does Bilimoria remain optimistic about Britain’s role in the world?

“Very optimistic,” he replies. “But I hate it when it’s damaged by this immigration rhetoric of the Nigel Farages and Theresa Mays of the world, it’s so unnecessary, it’s so damaging – it undermines all this.”

I’m sure a number of voters would drink to that.

 The article is available at the New Statesman website here

Lord Bilimoria went on to detail the threats to the UK’s soft and hard power, which include the repeated budget cuts inflicted on Britain’s cultural and defence institutions, and noted the areas in which the UK continues to excel.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and his committee on this excellent report, Persuasion and Power in the Modern World. In fact the report shows why we need a permanent foreign affairs committee in this House.

In his evidence to the Select Committee, Professor Nye said that in today’s international relations it is, “not just whose army wins, it is also whose story wins in an information age”.

I was in India, speaking on smart power, soft power and hard power—I am glad the committee made those connections—and I visited Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram. I reflected that if you are talking about soft power there is no better example than Mahatma Gandhi. One of his great quotes is “The battle of right against might”. He inspired Nelson Mandela. He has inspired so many people. I am delighted to say that on Saturday 14 March we will be unveiling a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square with the Indian Finance Minister and our Prime Minister. That is wonderful news.

There are so many examples of India’s soft power. One is yoga. There is going to be an international yoga day on 21 June. We should have yoga in Parliament. Another is Bollywood films. You could go on. We have heard example after example of the soft power that we have here in Britain. There is the BBC, to which almost every speaker has referred—and wow, this is the House of Lords, where we have the former director-general of the BBC, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, speaking so brilliantly about it. Then there is the British Council. I have been privileged to work with the British Council. It does amazing work and its budgets keep getting cut.

When we talk about soft power, it is also, in India’s case, the 25 million people of Indian origin around the world who are now reaching the very top—running some of the biggest companies in the world. The dean of the Harvard Business School is an Indian. The head of MasterCard is an Indian. The new head of Deloitte’s is an Indian. It goes on. That is also power. The British diaspora around the world is a huge source of power for us.

However, the worrying aspect of this, particularly in today’s world, is hard power. That is where this country—a tiny country with less than 1% of the world’s population—still has one of the most of the most powerful and effective defence forces in the world. Yet we had an SDSR in 2010 that was appalling, negligent and neglectful. We cut our Armed Forces brutally. We got rid of our aircraft carriers and our Harriers. As one of the world’s leading defence powers, we are without carrier capability in today’s environment. We needed them for Libya and we need them tomorrow. We do not have them. Who knows when they will arrive: perhaps in five years’ time if we are lucky. We also got rid of our Nimrods, while right under our noses the Russians are sending their submarines. We could do with those Nimrods. Yet we physically, brutally, destroyed those aircraft. I was at Wembley Stadium seeing Chelsea win the other day. Our army would not fill Wembley Stadium. That is shocking. To think that we could make this up by recruiting 30,000 reserves is wrong. Reserves are meant to be reserves. It is an oxymoron to say that reserves are permanent forces. We have, in any case, had difficulty recruiting them. That is very negligent. Are the Government committed to spending 2% of GDP on NATO now and in the future, with no further cuts to the Armed Forces going forward?

The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is now one of the most powerful people in the world, with an outright majority in India. He is a brilliant orator in Hindi—I would say one of the best orators in the world. In one of his speeches in India he kept using the Hindi word “takhath”, which means strength or power. He was talking about hard power, soft power and smart power.

In this excellent report, almost every one of the witnesses testified that the Government’s new visa policies are harming the assets that build the UK’s soft power. In fact, the editor of the Economist, John Micklethwait, was scathing about how increased visa restrictions and costs have affected UK commerce, describing the system as—I use his words—“bananas” and “suicidal”. He said: “All you need to do is to talk to businesspeople or, indeed, students in any other country who want to come and spend money here … It is completely useless in terms of recruiting people”.

I can vouch for that. It is the impression that we have created. Today, I was proud to host an event on international students, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hannay, with the Russell group in Parliament. Thirty-four per cent of academic staff at our Russell group universities—I am proud to be chancellor of the University of Birmingham, a Russell group university—are of non-UK nationality. Nineteen per cent of the undergraduates at Russell group universities are from outside the UK and—wait for this—47% of postgraduates are international students. That is how valuable they are to us. I know it; I was an international student myself when I came to this country. I know how difficult it was to raise the money to pay for the education over here. Yet, as a percentage of GDP, Britain spends half as much as the United States on higher education. As a percentage of GDP, we spend less than the OECD and EU averages on higher education.

When it comes to research and development and innovation—another great soft power—we way underspend as a percentage of GDP. Cambridge University, with 19 Nobel prizes, has won more Nobel prizes than any other university in the world. That is how well we do as a country. Yet we make it so difficult for international students, who bring in £14 billion. Education is one of our best exports and higher education is one of our strongest areas of soft power. In the United States it was found that of all patents registered at the country’s top 10 patent-generating universities, 76% had a foreign-born inventor. One of the founders of Google is foreign.

Yet you look ahead and you see the difficulty created by and the rhetoric that comes from—I am sorry to name her specifically—the Home Secretary. Forget Nigel Farage—even he objected to the vans telling illegal immigrants to “Go home”. When a £3,000 bond was proposed for all foreigners from countries such as India, alarm bells rang around the world. There were headlines in Indian newspapers when the Home Secretary stated that foreign students should leave the day after they had finished their studies.

The Bangalore Mirror said:

“Come to the UK: Graduate, and then get the hell out!”.

The Times of India’s headline was:

“UK to ‘kick out foreign graduates’ to curb immigration”.

Is that the rhetoric that we want from the jewel in the crown of our higher education soft power?

We should introduce exit checks immediately. Can the Minister confirm that exit checks are carried out, whereby passports—EU and non-EU—are scanned for everyone coming into and going out of the country through our ports? When that happens, we will have more control over our borders.

Our music industry and our sports, with the Premier League, Chelsea and Manchester United, produce household names around the world. Does the Minister agree that we should set a target to increase the number of international students? I believe that we should have a specific target to do so every year. Also important are our creative industries. The Royal Family, too, was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper. Seventy-one per cent of Americans rate the Royal Family in terms of popularity. That figure is almost as high as it is here, at 77%.

I hope that the SNP never gets into power, because getting rid of Trident would be the most negligent act in this country.

My noble friend Lord Hannay said something about Britain punching below its weight. I am sorry; I normally agree with my noble friend but I think that Britain is a country that continually punches well above its weight. Our capability in every area lies at the heart of this debate, whether in high-end manufacturing, aerospace, beer, universities, the creative industries, film, music or our institutions. We are the best in the world.

However, what underpins it all—I conclude with this—is that there is one thing in the world that we are respected for more than anything else, and that is integrity. It was described to me best by our noble and right reverend friend Lord Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, when he said that integrity comes from the Latin word “integer” or “integrum”, which means whole, complete and not fragmented. It means that you can stand up to the light and the fire and be absolutely pure, and this country has integrity.

 The Select Committee on Soft Power and the UK’s Influence report Persuasion and Power in the Modern World is available here.

As former international student himself, Lord Bilimoria remains a vocal support of the rights of people to study in at British universities, as well as being allowed to remain and work in the country after graduation.

The world’s brightest will shun the UK if isolationist rhetoric doesn’t stop now

We all have our own image of UK entrepreneurship. Sir Richard Branson is a common first choice, and Sir James Dyson is another. For me, it is the Indian Restaurateur.

When I first founded Cobra Beer 25 years ago, it was these tireless, unsung heroes of UK entrepreneurship who placed their trust and belief in my business. It is thanks to them that, today, I can see my Indian beer fill patrons’ glasses – both in the curry house and in that most British of all institutions, the pub.

That is what makes our economy one of the greatest in the world. It gives migrants the chance not only to build a business, but to see it become a part of the UK’s national identity – what, after all, could be more British than going out for a chicken tikka?

But as my own company has grown, so too has Britain’s antipathy towards migrants like myself. When I started Cobra in 1989, a little over 10 per cent of people considered immigration to be the most pressing issue facing the country; today it is nearly 40 per cent.

A report published this week by London First (and commissioned by Boris Johnson) highlights just how real the dangers of Britain taking the wrong path are. Calling openness to immigration one of the “critical underpinnings” of London’s success, it warns that turning away talented people could hamper Britain’s ability to remain competitive.

For a nation that still exports more to Switzerland than it does to India, this is sound advice. The long-term prospects of our economy depend upon Britain’s ability to successfully pivot its focus towards emerging Asian markets such as India and China.

Yet, in 2013, UK universities experienced a 25 per cent drop in the number of Indian-born students enrolling. Feeling spurned by Britain’s isolationist rhetoric, the world’s brightest and best are voting with their feet.

When politicians, like home secretary Theresa May, speak of moving towards “zero net student migration”, by sending foreign graduates home after they finish their studies – as she did last month, before having her proposals quashed by George Osborne – they are exhibiting a startling degree of economic illiteracy. While I’m glad that these specific plans look unlikely to happen, the broader shift in Britain’s immigration debate has not gone unnoticed abroad.

I recall being at a lecture in London where the Australian education minister Christopher Pyne thanked the UK government for its immigration policies because of the boost they provided to Australia’s higher education sector. Between May and Nigel Farage, we can hardly be surprised that Indian students are choosing to study in Brisbane and Canberra rather than Birmingham and Cambridge.

Today, 42 per cent of current international students profess an intention to set up their own business following graduation, but only 14 per cent wish to do this in the UK. If the government, and May in particular, persist with their vendetta, it will only be a matter of time before we turn away the next Steve Jobs or Sir James Dyson.

This year, Britain faces a fork in the road. On the one path lies openness and prosperity – on the other, isolation and decline. Let us hope we have the wisdom to choose the former.

The full piece is available online on City AM’s website.