Former Conservative minister believes members of the public do not view foreign students as immigrants

Michael Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister, has backed calls for foreign students to be excluded from the government's target to cut net migration.

He said that while he supported rigorous immigration controls, members of the public did not view students as immigrants and having foreign students in the UK brought considerable benefits.

Lord Heseltine spoke out following the publication of polling suggesting 59% of people think the government should not reduce the number of international students, even if that makes reducing immigration numbers harder. Among Conservative supporters, the figure was even higher, at 66%.

The poll, part of a report by the British Future thinktank and Universities UK, the body representing universities, also found that only 22% of people regard foreign students coming to the UK to study as immigrants.

When people are told that students do count as immigrants for the purposes of the government's target, "the most common reaction is surprise and even bafflement that international students are classified as immigrants at all", the report found.

The Home Office said foreign students were included in the figures because they had "an impact on our communities and on our public services" and because this was the practice followed by Britain's competitors and by the UN.

But Heseltine told the BBC: "The public do not see students who come and go as part of the immigration problem."

He said that students contributed to the prestige of British universities and played an ambassadorial role when they left, promoting British higher education abroad. They also brought "huge financial stability" to universities, he said, "enabling them to maintain their standards of excellence".

Heseltine's comments bring him into line with Labour, which also favours excluding students from immigration targets. The Home Office said: "While our reforms are cracking down on the abuse of student visas, which was allowed to continue for too long, we have seen applications to study at UK universities go up by 7% last year, and by even more for our world-leading Russell Group universities."

David Cameron wants to get annual net migration below 100,000 by 2015, although it is widely accepted in government that this target will be missed.

The Tory MP Mark Field, chairman of a group called Conservatives for Managed Migration, also backed the findings of the British Future/Universities UK report. "Politicians are rightly expected to engage with public concerns about immigration, and the government has done so admirably, but it is time politicians recognised that there are different types of immigration," he said.

"This report shows that the public already makes those distinctions and in fact has a pragmatic and nuanced view about the kinds of migration that best reflect our nation's interests and values. It demonstrates there is a broad public consensus that international students are good for Britain."

Migration Watch UK's chairman, Sir Andrew Green, said: "Nobody is against genuine students who return home but Lord Heseltine has not realised that only one third of non-EU students actually do so.

"The student route has become a massive hole in our immigration system. That is why the Government must stick to their guns on this matter."