Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of exempting Chevening Scholars from the visa brakes for student visa applicants from Cameroon, Afghanistan, Sudan and Myanmar.

The Government places significant value on Chevening. However, although the terms and conditions of the Chevening Scholarship require scholars to return home for at least two years following the completion of courses, there is evidence of asylum claims made by Chevening scholars from each of the affected nationalities in recent years. Given the continued asylum risk, the Government would consider it unfair to that introduce exceptions from the visa brakes for Chevening scholars of these nationalities, and we have no current plans to do so.