Check your facts

MRS Reynolds’ attack on “Mr” Raj Aggarwel, Honory Consul for India in Wales, (Argus Letters November 23) is high on outrage but low on facts.
First of all, he is not “Mr” but Professor Raj Aggarwel OBE, FRPS (Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society), a man who speaks six languages. 
Mrs Reynolds asks where he has been for the last six months, suggesting he is ignorant of the issues raised by Brexit. 
A quick check on the internet will reveal that he has been continuing his work as a leading researcher on pharmacy and public health, Chair of the Kidney Wales Foundation, member of the Board of Cardiff University, Managing Director of Aggarwel Group Ltd and a Director of Cardiff Business Club. As such I would suggest he is extremely well aware of the issues. 
He did not “insist”, as she claims, that visa restrictions on foreign students be lifted, but in his speech on 10th November merely raised concerns that the restrictions were damaging the Welsh economy because they meant that a growing number of the best Indian students are going to other countries instead of Britain. 
These students contribute £150 million a year to the Welsh economy and, far from being a drain on the NHS have contributed massively to it by remaining to work in Wales.
She contrasts Indian students who pay £150 to access the NHS with “British youngsters who pay every week”. 
Of course British students don’t pay anything to the NHS unless they are in paid work, in which case they pay no more or no less than Indians working in Britain. 
On top of this Indian students pay something like £700 for a student visa. 
She says we cannot afford any more. 
In fact the number of Indian students coming to Britain halved between 2010 and 2014. 
Mrs Reynolds is, of course, entitled to express her views but these would carry a lot more weight if she checked her facts first.