Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether independent evaluations of the Chevening programme have been commissioned in the last ten years.

For more than forty years since its establishment under Margaret Thatcher's government, the Chevening Programme has been creating long-lasting relationships with future generations of leaders, decision makers and businesspeople from across the globe. Information about funding and impact is available on the Development Tracker website (https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/programme/GB-GOV-3-CHEVENING/summary) and in the most recent Chevening Annual Impact Report (https://www.chevening.org/impact/chevenings-2023-2024-annual-impact-report/). Chevening's 60,000 alumni community includes 22 current or former heads of state or government while around 15 per cent of alumni hold prominent positions in government and 10 are currently serving as Ambassadors/High Commissioners in the UK. Most have maintained close links with the UK and our overseas network, helping strengthen long term bilateral relationships, supporting the UK's international priorities, delivering trade deals and unlocking access to key stakeholders.

In the financial year 2025-26, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) allocated £59.4 million to Chevening of which 97 per cent (£57.7 million) was defined as development spend. Further budget information, including on aid spending, is published in FCDO's Annual Reports and Accounts (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fcdo-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-to-2025). Information on previous years is also available on the GOV.UK website. No decision has been made as yet on the future budget allocation for the Chevening scholarships programme.

In the last 5 years, FCDO has awarded the following numbers of scholarships:

We work closely with the Home Office on issues related to visas and migration. Scholars all agree to Chevening's return home policy when they apply for the scheme.

An independent evaluation of the FCDO's scholarships programmes was carried out in 2023. Further details of this review including a copy of the UK Government's response to the review can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-public-body-review-of-fcdo-funded-scholarship-schemes-uk-government-response.

190 Chevening scholars have studied at the University of Essex over the last 10 years.

In 2025/26 the top 3 Universities in terms of enrolment were London School of Economics and Political Science, University College London and the University of Sussex.