Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Murray of Blidworth on 25 May (HL Deb, col 1063), what plans they have to reform the application process for student visas for British Overseas Territory passport holders.

While a British Overseas Territory (BOT) passport holder is not automatically a British Citizen, a person who is both a British citizen and British overseas territories citizen will have the right of abode in the UK, and so will not need to apply for a visa to study here. However, they may need to show that they are a British citizen, and so may wish to apply for a British citizen passport or certificate of entitlement to the right of abode. British overseas citizens who are not also British citizens will need to apply for a visa.

BOT citizens who are not eligible for British citizenship can apply for a student visa online, which requires biometrics to be provided.

Biometric enrolment services for those who hold a BOT passport and who wish to make a UK visa application are available in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, St Helena and, for those in the Sovereign Base areas of Akrotiri or Dhekelia, via Nicosia.

It would not be commercially viable to operate a visa application centre or temporary biometrics enrolment service in the remaining BOTs due to the small volume of customers and/or remote locations of these territories. This may mean travelling to a nearby location.

As part of our Future Borders and Immigration System programme, we continue to roll out digitisation of all our application processes, which in future will minimise the requirement to attend visa application centres.