Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what security checks her Department undertakes on refugees coming to the UK from Gaza.

The Government is supporting a group of Chevening Scholars and fully funded scholarship students to depart from Gaza to take up university places in the UK in Autumn for the 2025/26 academic year. The Government has also committed to evacuate a limited number of sick and injured children out of Gaza to receive specialist treatment in NHS hospitals across the UK. These individuals are not refugees and are not entering the UK using refugee resettlement routes.

All visa applicants are required to provide their biographic and biometric data to enable a range of security checks to be completed, including criminality checks.

Robust security checks are being undertaken on all individuals who enter the UK through this process. Biometrics are collected as part of the visa application process and prior to travel to the UK.

The Home Office uses various tools to detect and disrupt travel by terrorists, by criminals and by individuals excluded from the UK; previously deported from the UK; or using lost, stolen or revoked documents and visas. This includes the use of domestic and international watchlists. The Home Office works with both law enforcement and wider government partners to ensure appropriate action is taken before travel or at the border when individuals of concern are identified. It would not be appropriate to provide further information about the nature and scope of security checks.