Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the youth, student and educational travel industry on the economy.

Since the UK’s exit from the European Union, the government’s priority has been for people from Europe and beyond to be able to visit and enjoy the UK and for the tourism industry to thrive.The continuing desirability of English language skills drives the UK’s soft power on the world stage.

The Tourism Recovery Plan recognises educational travel as an important part of the visitor economy and highlights the 2021 updates to the International Education Strategy, which sets out how we will promote English Language Training in the UK.

There were 35,700 UK jobs supported by English Language Training in 2018, and this industry provided £1.4 billion GVA to the UK economy.