Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government which of the 34 current OECD countries include international students within their national immigration statistics, and which do not.

The majority of our major competitors for the brightest and best students, including Australia, Canada and the USA, include international students in their national migration statistics.

The UK’s immigration statistics, published by the independent Office for National Statistics (ONS), follow the internationally agreed United Nations definitions. These define a migrant as someone who changes their normal place of residence for more than a year. Students are therefore included in the same way as other migrants.

The categories of migrant included by other OECD countries in their statistical returns to the OECD is contained in the annex to the OECD International Migration Outlook at: http://www.oecd.org/migration/international-migration-outlook-1999124x.htm