Senior Conservative MPs have backed calls for students from Hong Kong to be given access to home fee status in the UK.
Tens of thousands of Hongkongers have moved to the former colonial power amid increasingly authoritarian Chinese rule in the city, with British National (Overseas) status – which allows them to live, work and study in the UK – set to be extended from October to adults born after 1997 who have at least one BN(O) parent.
But a letter backed by leading parliamentarians highlights that these students face paying university tuition fees costing thousands of pounds more a year than their UK-born counterparts, since they are not eligible for home fee status or government-backed public finance until they been resident in the UK for five years.
