Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what consultation her Department carried out prior to launching the UKVI Tier Two pilot involving the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Bath and Imperial College London.

The Home Office launched a Tier 4 visa pilot involving the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Bath and Imperial College London on 25 July. The pilot has been introduced to test the benefits of a differentiated approach within the education sector on the basis of compliance with immigration sponsorship requirements.

The pilot is deliberately narrow in scope, with the institutions selected on the basis of their consistently low level of visa refusals. Visa refusal rates are part of the Basic Compliance Assessment, which requires all Tier 4 sponsors to meet three core requirements based on measures of visa refusals, enrolment and completion of studies.

The limited nature of the pilot is intended to ensure that the outcomes can be adequately monitored, whilst minimising the risk of unintended consequences, before considering rolling-out the scheme more widely.

The four selected institutions were consulted regarding its implementation. Should the pilot be successful and rolled out more widely, the Home Office will consult key stakeholders about its expansion.