New cross-party group of MPs looking into Home Office decision to revoke student visas

New cross-party group of MPs looking into Home Office decision to revoke student visas

We are delighted to announce that a new cross-party group of MPs is launching an inquiry into the matter of the tens of thousands of international students who were accused of cheating on an English test in 2014.

We’ve been working with some of these students since 2017 and campaigning for justice alongside them – and we’re optimistic that this inquiry will help us reach that goal.

The new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) met at Westminster on Tuesday 5 March for the first time. It’s chaired by Stephen Timms MP, a stalwart in this campaign for justice. He was joined at the first meeting by the Labour MPs Jim Fitzpatrick and Ruth Cadbury, the SNP MP Martyn Day and Independent MP Mike Gapes. Conservative MP Paul Scully is also a member of this “APPG on TOEIC”.

Migrant Voice is acting as the “secretariat” for the APPG, offering advice and administrative support.

The group will hold a number of meetings over the next few months, gathering evidence from students, lawyers and other experts in a bid to discover exactly how the Home Office made the decision to remove or revoke the visas of 35,870 people, what happened to the 22,000 students with “questionable” test results, and the impact of their actions on the lives of those accused. We will be working closely with Stephen Timms and the APPG at every step of the way.

But while the inquiry is going on, we will not stop calling on the Home Secretary to take urgent action. He must allow all those accused to sit a new, secure English test, clear the names of those who pass and give them back their status.

The evidence the Home Office relied on to throw the lives of more than 56,000 people into chaos is largely absent – and where it does exist, it is fundamentally flawed. Untold numbers of lives have been ruined, families torn apart, futures stolen.

The damage cannot be undone. But further injustice can be prevented, if the government acts now.

Read about our day of action at Westminster in January here and our latest editorial on the issue here.

Watch the latest coverage of the issue on ITV News here.

Sign the petition here.

Donate to the campaign here.