Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of reducing the number of international students at UK universities on the UK's future position in the Higher Education Policy Institute soft-power index.

Our offer to international students is extremely competitive and ensures that we continue to attract the best and brightest students from around the world.

The Government’s International Education Strategy set out a target of attracting 600,000 international Higher Education students to the UK by 2030, which we have achieved almost a decade early.

The public also rightly expects us to control immigration and ensure we have a system that works in the UK’s best interests.

As the Growth Plan set out, the Government is looking at how immigration contributes to growth and will set out further details in due course.