Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will take steps with the Secretary of State for the Home Department to establish a scheme to facilitate the evacuation of Palestinian academics to the UK.

We are working urgently to support Chevening Scholars and fully-funded scholarship holders in Gaza who have offers from British universities to leave and take up their places in the UK. We are doing everything we can to support their safe exit and onward travel to the UK, but the situation on the ground in Gaza makes this extremely challenging. All individuals who enter the UK are subject to robust security checks and have to submit their biometrics ahead of travel.