Students 'should not be included in immigration cuts'

Overseas students should not be part of the debate on immigration, according to the former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine.

Students are "not the sort of people that are causing the anxiety about immigration," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, in response to a new report that suggests the Government should remove them from immigration targets.

He added: "I think that students are really not what people perceive as immigrants."

Foreign students not only bring financial stability to Britain's universities which allow them to maintain standards of excellence but he said they also have an ambassadorial role which students take with them in the world, he said.

Read: Foreign students 'should not be hit by immigration cuts'

Britons do not view foreign students as immigrants and are opposed to attempts to reduce their number in a bid to lower net immigration, according to a new study.

The report suggests the Government should remove them from immigration targets and support attempts to attract even more to come here to study.

It was carried out by the British Future think tank and Universities UK, the representative organisation of the country's universities.

According to the new report, international students are the largest group of migrants from outside the EU counted in the Government's immigration figures.

But a poll of 2,111 people found just over one in five (22%) class overseas students as immigrants, and only the same amount would support a reduction in their numbers.