Under fire: Business Secretary Sajid Javid 'struck a completely discordant note' last week when he called for international students to be expelled as soon as they finish at British universities

Sajid Javid usually speaks sense in his role as Business Secretary. But last week he struck a completely discordant note when he called for international students to be expelled as soon as they finish at British universities.

He says he wants to ‘break the link’ between foreign nationals studying here and staying on after they graduate.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

Mr Javid has previously said that he is a strong believer in ‘disruptive’ technologies that help to shake up our often complacent industrial sector. Now he is essentially saying that we must eject the very people who could create the kind of world-beating technologies he has demanded.

When Home Secretary Theresa May mooted the same idea earlier this year, industry roundly rejected the idea.

If Mr Javid truly wants to help his Government colleagues to ‘secure a better future’, he needs to face the facts.

The Business Secretary acknowledges that foreign students bring nearly £7 billion into the British economy each year, drawn by our world-renowned universities. More and more of the brightest sons and daughters of our competitor nations are schooled on UK shores.

Rather than send these people back home immediately, we should encourage them to stay in their adopted land.

China, India and South Korea produce hundreds of thousands of high- calibre engineering and science graduates each year.

However, those engineers and scientists educated in this country are a cut above the rest.

We might not be able to match the quantity of these Asian countries’ graduate production lines, but we are unmatched on the quality – even if the geniuses in question hail from Guangzhou rather than Guildford. It is estimated that China and India will account for 40 per cent of all young people with a tertiary education in G20 and OECD countries by 2020. The EU, meanwhile, will account for just 25 per cent.

Import and export: Sir James Dyson says the situation will not change if we insist on ejecting 'foreign' students. We know that Britain needs experts in these sectors, so why are we turning them away?

By 2020, Britain will have a deficit of 640,000 engineers. Some of the foreign PhD students beavering away in our university research laboratories could make a potent impact on this shortfall. Now it sounds as if they will be sent packing.

The UK should not just nurture international talent – it also needs to harness it for its own good too, regardless of nationality.

Dyson sponsors university scholarships through its charitable foundation. One such scholar is an American PhD student at Imperial College. He is researching new ways to tackle pancreatic cancer: it is my fervent hope that this clever young man will stay in the UK after graduation, and make a success of his idea here – potentially earning our economy millions and saving lives all over the world. But if the Government has its way, that will be impossible. We’ll lose both the technology, and the brains behind it.

Here at Dyson we are expanding. We need 6,000 more scientists, engineers and software dynamos. Specialists in fields such as power systems, software and fluid dynamics are in chronically short supply.

And this situation will not change if we insist on ejecting ‘foreign’ students. We know that Britain needs experts in these sectors, so why are we turning them away?

Why are we so intent on importing and encouraging products made by our international competitors? For Britain to secure these benefits, we must design, develop and export.

In the past it has taken four months to get just one non-EU engineer through the visa system.

Each year around ten per cent of our new workforce are on so-called Tier 2 visas and that figure is set to increase.

The battle to get them here is a drain on resources and time – and incredibly inefficient. It creates jobs in our human resources and legal teams, but hampers progress in our research and development, where the value really lies.

Australia may be an obvious example, but it has got it right. Between 2006 and 2011, 71.4 per cent of the increase in Australia’s supply of qualified engineers came from skilled migration. Using a scheme called SkillSelect, Australia manages its migration, reducing an engineering deficit that would otherwise harm the economy.

Why are we so intent on importing and encouraging products made by our international competitors? For Britain to secure these benefits, we must design, develop and export.

Just look at BAE Systems, which alone generates £7.9 billion a year for the UK economy and accounts for one per cent of all UK exports.

Ruthlessly discarding the skills we so desperately need will adversely halt companies such as BAE Systems, and the UK economy as a whole.

British exports are shrinking, but we can reverse this. Stop ejecting creators of technology: only the best technology will revive our exports and prosperity.

Instead let’s implement a streamlined process in which the top ten per cent of foreign students pursuing careers in engineering, science and technology are fast-tracked into British companies.

By all means make it contingent on working in select and necessary industries, but make sure that we welcome their wisdom.