Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will take steps to ensure that students studying abroad whose studies are interrupted by conflict have access to student finance on returning to the UK.

The amount of funding available to any student is affected by whether they have studied previously. Eligible students who return to England and enter higher education in the UK will therefore have any years of previous study taken into account when an assessment is made for a full-time tuition fee loan for a new course.

One additional year of tuition fee loan may be available if the student was forced to withdraw from a previous course for compelling personal reasons. Students may ask that the conflict in their initial country of study be taken into account when they apply to Student Finance England for funding.