Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of allowing international students to quarantine at their university on arrival in the UK.

International students are a vital and valued part of our higher education sector. I speak regularly with my counterparts across government about how various COVID-19 policies may affect students with a view to minimising burdens for students while maintaining public health, and I have remained in close contact with ministers at the Department of Health and Social Care who are responsible for the Managed Quarantine Service.

Hotel quarantine is in place for all travellers that have travelled from or through a red-list country to prevent the spread of potentially harmful COVID-19 variants in the UK, and there is a need to have strict rules in place to prevent the vaccine effort from being undermined.

We have worked closely with the sector and colleagues across the government to ensure that UK residents (including international students due to their visa status), that are facing significant financial hardship will have the opportunity to apply for a deferred repayment plan when booking their managed quarantine hotel room. Travellers who access hardship will be referred to a Government debt collection agency (“Qualco”), who will perform an independent financial assessment and determine an appropriate payment plan.

Any student who is experiencing financial hardship can speak with their provider about support. We have made an additional £85 million of student hardship funding available to higher education providers in the 2020/21 academic year. This is in addition to the £256 million of government funded student premium funding already available to higher education providers to draw on for this academic year, 2020/21, and this support can include help for students, including international students and postgraduates. International students can be confident in expressing these concerns to their provider without any impact on their immigration status.