Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Statement by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 8 January (WS 69) in relation to their overseas scholarship schemes, whether they anticipate an overall increase or decrease in the number of scholarships following the outcome of the review.

The primary focus of the review is to establish whether there is scope for further efficiencies and synergies across the main Government funded scholarship schemes. We await the outcomes of the review due to be published in March 2015 and will assess the potential impact on the three schemes and scholarship numbers at that stage.

In the Budget statement of March 2014, separate to this review, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), announced an increase in funding for the Chevening programme to triple the number of awards made to scholars from developing countries during the 2015-16 academic year. We anticipate, therefore, having a minimum of 1500 Chevening scholars coming to the UK from September 2015 onwards.