The Commons Public Accounts Committee published its 7th Report of Session 2012-13, ‘Immigration: Points Based System-Student Route,’ as HC 101 on Tuesday 4 September.

The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, today said:

“It is extraordinary that the UK Border Agency introduced its new points based system for students before proper controls were in place to replace the old ones.

The result of the Agency’s poorly planned and ill-thought out course of action was chaos: an immediate high level of abuse of the new system and a surge in the number of student visas. In 2009 the number of migrants who abused the student route to work rather than study went up by as much as 40,000 to 50,000.

Since then, the Agency has been playing catch-up, continually adjusting the rules and procedures in order to try and tackle abuse.”

Read a summary and the full report at the Parliament.uk website.