Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of her recent decision on Sudanese student visas on the Chevening Scholarship programme.

The decision to introduce a visa brake on the Student visa route for Sudan and the other three nationalities was based on data-driven migration and border security considerations. While we recognise that most people who apply to study in the UK do so genuinely, the evidence is clear that the Student route for these nationalities has been a source of a high number and high proportion of visa-linked asylum claims. We have therefore acted to halt this unacceptable strain on our asylum system, and to ensure that the system remains fair, credible, and sustainable.

This decision may be disappointing to nationals of these countries who wished to join the Chevening Scholarship programme. The visa brake was introduced on account of patterns of visa-linked asylum claims by nationality and we have no plans, at present, to provide exceptions for the Chevening Scholarship programme or any other scholarship programme.