Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Tapp and Siân Berry

Monday 23rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

14. What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential impact of the introduction of the visa brake on Chevening scholars.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mike Tapp)]

We have discussed the introduction of visa brakes across Government, including the impact on Chevening scholars. Chevening scholarships continue to attract and support exceptional future leaders across the globe, and will continue to do so. Restoring order and control to our system is a top priority. Through the visa brake we are acting quickly and decisively to address high numbers and proportions of visa-linked asylum claims. By the year ending September 2025, asylum applications from students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan had risen to over 470% of their 2021 level.

[Siân Berry]

Including prestigious Chevening scholarships in the Government’s clampdown on certain study visas is devastating for those who have been shortlisted, including students who are set to join our world-leading programmes at Sussex University. It raises questions about the value that the Government put on nurturing talent, particularly for women from Afghanistan, from whom I have seen heartbreaking accounts of terminated applications. Will the Minister and the Home Secretary urgently revisit that decision?

[Mike Tapp]

I have laid out the concerns, and the reasons for this brake. For example, 93% of those coming over from Afghanistan as students are claiming asylum. The Green party may well want open borders; that is not what we stand for. We stand for control and order, but, at the same time, compassion. That is exactly why we are looking at safe and legal routes, while working to control the borders.