Asked by: Lord Fink (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many university places were awarded to people with refugee status in the UK in each year between 2010 and 2016.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on the number of people with refugee status who were awarded a university place via the UCAS system or who are enrolled at UK universities is not held by the department.
Student support is available to those recognised as refugees (and their spouses, civil partners and children named on the initial application for asylum), provided they have been ordinarily resident in the British Islands since being recognised by the Government as a refugee and are ordinarily resident in England on the first day of the first academic year of the course. They are exempt from the three year residence requirement.
Asylum seekers who are recognised as refugees after the start of their course may qualify for support for the remainder of their studies as follows:
Management information from the SLC showing the number of refugee applicants awarded loans in England in each of the last six years can be found in the table below:
English Domiciled applicants with a refugee status awarded student loans
Academic years 2010/11 to 2015/16 (data effective as at the end of each academic year)
Academic Year | Number of refugees awarded loans |
2010/11 | 2,500 |
2011/12 | 3,000 |
2012/13 | 3,700 |
2013/14 | 3,800 |
2014/15 | 3,900 |
2015/16 | 3,700 |
Source: SLC, Management Information
Note: Awards do not necessarily translate into payments. An awarded applicant will only receive payments once SLC has received confirmation from the student’s provider at the start of the academic year that the student has been registered on the course.
Asked by: Lord Fink (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Palestinian Authority about recent fatal attacks on the Metro train line running between East and West Jerusalem.
Answered by Baroness Anelay of St Johns
Our Consul-General to Jerusalem has met with advisers to President Abbas and senior officials in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, where he has discussed the current tensions in Jerusalem including the attacks on the Jerusalem light rail. He has been urging Palestinian leaders to exert their influence to restore calm in Jerusalem, as our embassy in Tel Aviv has also been doing in its contacts with Israeli leaders.