UK visa policy ‘an act of national self-harm’, says Lords’ science committee

The House of Lords science and technology committee has issued a stark warning that the UK’s current visa system puts it at a competitive disadvantage in the race for global scientific talent. In a letter to home secretary Yvette Cooper, chancellor Rachel Reeves and science minister Patrick Vallance, the committee’s chair Julia King described the barriers faced by postgraduate students and early-career researchers who wish to move to the UK as ‘an act of national self-harm’.