Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they assess whether a student visa sponsor remains fully compliant, and whether they plan to introduce any additional regulatory tools to address student visa misuse.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office requires sponsors to pass an annual Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) to retain their licence. Additionally, sponsor visiting teams carry out audits to ensure sponsors are fulfilling their duties.

As set out in the Immigration White Paper, we are taking action to drive responsible recruitment by tightening the minimum pass requirement of each BCA metric by five percentage points. Further details will be provided in due course.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are reviewing the quantitative thresholds of the core requirements for student visa sponsor compliance.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office requires sponsors to pass an annual Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) to retain their licence. Additionally, sponsor visiting teams carry out audits to ensure sponsors are fulfilling their duties.

As set out in the Immigration White Paper, we are taking action to drive responsible recruitment by tightening the minimum pass requirement of each BCA metric by five percentage points. Further details will be provided in due course.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to make the frequency of asylum applications from student visa holders at the same student visa sponsor grounds to suspend or revoke a student visa sponsor licence.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office requires sponsors to pass an annual Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) to retain their licence. Additionally, sponsor visiting teams carry out audits to ensure sponsors are fulfilling their duties.

As set out in the Immigration White Paper, we are taking action to drive responsible recruitment by tightening the minimum pass requirement of each BCA metric by five percentage points. Further details will be provided in due course.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many asylum claims have been submitted by visa holders with a licensed student visa sponsor in the most recent 12-month period.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office publishes data on people claiming asylum by route of entry to the UK in table Asy_D01a of the 'Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release' on GOV.UK. The latest data relates to the year ending June 2025. Between July 2024 and June 2025, 14,800 asylum claims were submitted by those holding a study visa. There is no breakdown by sponsored or non-sponsored study available. This breakdown is not available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have identified any legacy pressures arising from the centralised prisoner allocation system in regions with higher concentrations of prisoner places; and what steps they are taking to ensure that those pressures do not hinder local investment in crime prevention and rehabilitation programmes.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

With the prison system routinely operating at 98% occupancy, central management of population movements is the only practical mechanism to ensure every legally committed prisoner is accommodated appropriately. This includes transferring prisoners from regions with deficits of prison places to regions with relative surpluses.

To put prison capacity on a sustainable footing, the Government launched an Independent Review of Sentencing on 22 October 2024, chaired by former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke. The review was published on 22 May this year and we are accepting, in principle, the following recommendations which will support effective crime prevention and rehabilitation:

• Release will be earned – and the most dangerous offenders excluded.

• Ramping up tagging and monitoring, with an up to £700 million uplift in annual probation budgets.

• Toughening up punishment outside of prison so offenders pay back their debt to society.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many accidental prisoner releases in that past 12 months were due to (1) human error, (2) incorrect or incomplete paperwork from the courts, (3) communication failures between courts and prisons, and (4) other administrative or operational causes; and what steps they are taking to address those issues.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Release inaccuracy is yet another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. While the overwhelming majority of offenders are released correctly, we are bearing down on those errors that do occur, and this includes releases in error from prisons.

On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point action plan setting out initial steps, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent inquiry, which will report its recommendations to prevent further inaccuracies.

The latest data on releases in error from prisons, which we published exceptionally on 11 November, showed that there have been 91 releases in error from prisons from April 2025 to October 2025. Data on releases is based on the information available at the time. It may be the case in some circumstances that information on a case is brought to light that either confirms or disproves a release in error. Future release in error data will be published in the normal way through our regular statistics and Dame Lynne Owens will be looking at data and transparency as part of her independent investigation.

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