That this House has considered the Academic Technology Approval Scheme.
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher; I wish you a happy new year, although we are probably in the dregs of when we can say that. I welcome the Minister for what I hope will be a constructive half-hour debate. I will start by briefly setting out what ATAS is, because if I have learned one thing in the last few months, it is that it has quite low salience—including, I regret to say, in the Foreign Office. If this debate achieves nothing else, I hope it resolves that.
ATAS, known properly as the academic technology approval scheme, is a system by which additional checks are carried out on international students and researchers of certain nationalities, or those working in security-related fields. It is clearly an incredibly important process, and one that exists in some form in most other countries where advanced research is taking place. ATAS checks are most commonly needed when individuals will be studying, researching or working in subject topics that could be used to develop advanced conventional military technology or weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.
There is an obvious reason why it is important to get ATAS right. The type of research that, in the wrong hands, could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction is also the type of research that is critical for making many non-military advancements. For example, biophysics research in molecular medicine involves groundbreaking discoveries in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases that can change the lives of millions of people. Creating novel chemical materials could revolutionise food packaging and how it is recycled.
We all know that we need better energy systems and sources. Buses now commonly run on hydrogen, a move that in Scotland, I am proud to say, was supported by experts in the school of chemistry at the University of St Andrews in my constituency. And then there is artificial intelligence. We know that it is having a huge impact on how we live our lives, and I want to ensure that the best and brightest are here in the UK working on it, ensuring that the development of AI includes the necessary guardrails to prevent its abuse. Those are just a few examples of research subjects that could require ATAS approval for an international student or academic.
My point is that if we want the UK to be a world leader in research and development, which is key to the Government’s modern industrial strategy, then we need to attract the brightest and the best. We cannot do that if the security checks needed to process their visas are not working.
I thank the hon. Lady for always bringing forward incredibly important subjects, both to Westminster Hall and on the Floor of the House. Universities back home, such as Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University, have many ATAS students and researchers who study in sensitive areas such as science, engineering and technology. Many of the funded research positions have been delayed or even unfilled due to ATAS processing times having a significant impact on the system. Does the hon. Lady agree that more must be done for clearance to be secured in a timely manner so that advantage can be taken of vital research postings?
The hon. Member always manages to touch in advance on the key topics that we will raise in the debate, and timescales in relation to ATAS is certainly one of the things that I will touch on.
I turn to the time it takes for ATAS checks to be carried out. I am grateful that the Minister wrote to me last week confirming a standard timeframe of 30 working days—six weeks—to process applications. That seems quite reasonable for something technical that we clearly want to get right. The problem is that that response timescale is not exactly everyone’s experience. I have had casework for academics and students coming to the University of St Andrews with delays of up to six months, an experience that is shared by the Russell Group of universities, which reached out to me in advance of this debate.
Processing delays are not anything new, but there are a few elements that I want to pull out. Most postgraduate programmes of study and research programmes have defined start and end dates, which is particularly true when grant funding is being utilised. Missing those start dates due to ATAS delays means that research students miss the start of their course, and that research projects might need to delay their start dates or begin without key personnel. The University of St Andrews will not make a formal offer without ATAS being completed, and the student cannot apply for their visa without receiving a formal offer from the university.[Official Report, 21 January 2026; Vol. 779, c. 4WC.] (Correction) These are the different roadblocks on the way to getting approval.
Sir Christopher, can you imagine securing the funding for groundbreaking research and attracting the best global talent, only to find, days before the project is due to start, that you still do not know whether you can go ahead? You find yourself having to go back to the finance provider to ask for leniency and change contract dates and funding arrangements—all while worrying that the funding might ultimately be withdrawn. That could jeopardise your chances of receiving future support, or mean that the individual in question gives up on the process and secures employment elsewhere.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), the Minister of State who oversees this area within the Foreign Office, is unable to attend the debate, so I am grateful for the opportunity to respond on his behalf.
It is fundamentally important that there is feedback to the Government and Government Departments on where things could be improved and on where Departments could be better joined up. Sometimes, perhaps unintentionally, things can fall through the cracks. Sometimes there may be system dysfunction, but sometimes it may be the fault of an individual—it could be a training issue or someone who is new to the role. I am not saying that I know all the details, but it is important that we continue to maintain the best possible service for all our constituents and for the whole country. I also appreciate the contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is always an important voice in our debates. A number of matters have been raised to which I will seek to respond.
It is important to reflect on the point that the hon. Member for North East Fife made about our need to attract the brightest and best to our country to support our economy and be part of international research teams. As part of Britain being a global and outward-facing nation, that we are looking to those teams to bring the best knowledge and insights from across the world. Having global talent and working together is part of the United Kingdom’s success as a science and technology superpower. In a similar way, UK talent goes abroad. Sometimes research teams operate and work in this country and then in other countries. That is part of our work and how we grow our economy, but we must also look at where we might work together on sensitive matters that underpin our security.
The Minister has just mentioned the Home Office. I suppose part of our frustration as a team was that ATAS responsibility sits within the FCDO rather than the Home Office, and that there is a lack of knowledge and understanding. I am very pleased to hear that work is ongoing. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that the House is properly updated in relation to that work? Will it take on board some of the suggestions I have made? The key frustration for me and my team is that we are used to being able to get some answers, but with ATAS that feels very, very difficult to do.
I do understand the importance of that. There are other issues that in my previous role last year in the Home Office, I experienced when working alongside other Departments, including the DFE and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
The hon. Member has also highlighted the relationship between Foreign Office-led processes, some of which may lead to and require checks being made outside the Foreign Office. I take her point and will relay it to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who oversees this area. I am happy to work with him on it, because I am interested in how Foreign Office-led services and delivery can be the best they can be, and whether there are further lessons to be learned.
We will consider how we can keep the hon. Member for North East Fife and the House updated on where the improvements that we are already working on can lead to change, not least in responsiveness to Members of Parliament, which I take very seriously, as does my hon. Friend the Minister of State. I appreciate the feedback; I continue to believe that it is important that Government continue to learn. We are like any other organisation, in that the continuous improvement of our operations should be a matter of concern to all of us. In this case, it certainly is.
I emphasise that ATAS sits within a much broader Government commitment to supporting research, innovation and international collaboration. Our approach is to combine openness with responsibility and to continue to work closely with universities to improve guidance, streamline communication and ensure that applicants understand ATAS requirements early.
It is not always the case, but sometimes applications are put in very close to the mark. There can also be an assumption that, where there is a 30-day working standard, it will all happen within 30 days. I do not know the details of the hon. Member’s case, although I know that she is very assiduous in raising cases for her constituents, but it is important that we make sure there is that communication and that there are clearer routes for institutions to raise concerns, improve transparency on processes and strengthen engagement with the sector.
I put my thanks on the record—it is great to hear that the case was expedited as a result of our actions—but what I have tried to illustrate today is that we had no real knowledge of that or of how to achieve it, so I am grateful to the Minister for that update.
Sometimes our processes mean that we or the Home Office may contact the constituent earlier than we respond to the Member of Parliament. Sometimes it is joined up, but sometimes there is a slight delay. It is very important that we ensure that the constituent is updated so that they can make arrangements, but I appreciate that there was a slight delay in the correspondence sent to the hon. Lady to make sure that she was fully informed.
This has been an important debate. I recognise that feedback is important as we continue to join up. The data shows that ATAS, which is a vital part of our security protections, operates strongly. Cases may take longer where there is significant demand, but the security of the United Kingdom requires careful and proportionate judgment. Where we can continue to improve our operations, we will certainly endeavour to do so.
Question put and agreed to.
11:27 am
Sitting suspended.
Although I am relieved to know from my conversations with the University of St Andrews that it has managed to deal with the stress of these concerns—but not the losses themselves—I have been told by the Russell Group about other universities that have experienced researchers and students withdrawing applications and going to other research-intensive nations instead, and about large research and development businesses withdrawing from university-led projects because they could not wait any longer for applications to be approved.
I therefore ask the Minister whether the 30-day standard period is a reasonable reflection of capacity. Would a 40 or even 50-day target perhaps be better? Then universities and applicants could plan accordingly. Could that be put into a formal, service-level agreement, so that universities, applicants and funding providers could manage expectations? There are naturally peaks to the number of applications for review over the summer, given that the academic cycle, even for non-taught research, tends to start in the autumn. Could the Government be taking steps to prepare for that? Could extra resources be put in place? I understand that the highly technical nature of the checks being carried out means that there is a need for scientific experts, who are already in high demand in Whitehall. Does the Minister feel that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has sufficient scientific capacity to meet demand? Is that something that engagement with the university sector and the specialists we have here could resolve?
I have mentioned casework, because for MPs that is a huge part of our job. Visa problems, Department for Work and Pensions issues and HM Revenue and Customs delays are the bread and butter of our inbox and the work that our constituency staff do. It is a question of trying to find out the problem and what can be done to unstick whatever is stuck. But frustratingly, we cannot do that with ATAS. There is just one email address, for use by universities, MPs, students or anyone else who needs to get in touch. I am not sure that I have ever received a response from it. I am not surprised—it must be absolutely inundated.
Surely there must be a better system. I would rather we did not have delays with visas or pensions, which my team have to chase up on constituents’ behalf, but this is at least something that we can do and that can give some answers as to why things are moving slowly and when an answer can be expected. Will the Minister look into an MP hotline for ATAS or a dedicated email address for use by registered universities? We can of course get in touch with the Home Office, as ATAS delays stop visas being processed, but this does not help at all, with UK Visas and Immigration officials left as in the dark as everyone else over the status of an ATAS check. Like us, all they can do is wait.
The opacity of the system was thrown into sharp relief for me towards the end of last year by one particular piece of casework. My constituent, an academic at the University of St Andrews, was applying for his visa to be renewed. This was all completely routine, but tragically, after his having submitted all the information and with the ATAS checks under way, his father unexpectedly took ill and passed away. He naturally wanted to travel home to Syria to see his family, pay his respects and, as the eldest son, arrange and play a part in his father’s funeral. He immediately contacted UKVI and asked for permission to travel.
The next developments, I understand, are outwith the remit of the Minister and are not why we are here today, but they are worth noting. There does not seem to be a Home Office exemption to allow time-limited bereavement travel, even where evidence of death has been provided; and the UKVI escalation process, while effective, is still slow in consideration of the cultural norms for burial soon after death in many countries.
All of that means that my constituent had missed his father’s funeral before any answers were received. He still wanted to return home to be with his family and pay his respects as soon as possible, and this is where we return to ATAS, because he was told that if he left the country, he would need to start his visa and ATAS applications all over again. That would require him to incur significant cost and uncertainty and risk serious disruption to his ongoing academic responsibilities. The only option, we were told by the Home Office, was to try to get his visa renewal through as quickly as possible. That left one big stumbling block: the inability to directly contact, chase or otherwise check in with ATAS over his security checks. This was without knowing how long the current waiting period was, and without ATAS having any guidance or grounds for expedition in compassionate circumstances.
My team are a pretty resourceful bunch, and they tried everything they could think of. They obviously emailed the public email address, and we wrote to the FCDO. We rang the FCDO helpline, and I was told on that phone call that the FCDO did not know what ATAS was and whether it was part of its remit. That is a bit worrying. When it was explained, we were told that surely this was the responsibility of the Home Office. It went on.
There is a positive ending in this case. Although my constituent missed the funeral and the initial mourning period, his checks did go through and his visa was renewed. He was able to see his mother and sister and pay his respects to his father. I am not convinced that anything done by my office—or indeed by me, because I did try to speak to a couple of FCDO Ministers in the House—did anything in that regard.
I know that the Minister will point out that in the end my constituent’s ATAS checks were done within the six-week processing window. It is true that this is not one of the cases of terrible delay that I referred to earlier, but it clearly demonstrates the need for escalation routes for MPs or sponsoring universities, transparent processing timeframes, and a compassionate travel route or other allowances for bereaved applicants—or at least knowledge of what the process can and should be and whether indeed it is possible at all. Above all, there should be some form of knowledge or oversight within the FCDO, given that nobody seemed to know that ATAS existed or was an FCDO responsibility.
Something called the academic technology approval scheme might sound incredibly dry, but I hope that this debate demonstrates that it is incredibly important. It is important for our industrial strategy, medical breakthroughs, securing our energy future, and supporting our universities and our security as a nation. It is also about people. These issues are not minor. Roughly a quarter of the University of St Andrews’s skilled worker visa applications last year involved ATAS checks, and a tenth of the ATAS students had their start days impacted. As proud as I am of the university, I know it is not the only top-level research centre in the UK. If we add up those figures, we are looking at thousands of delays and research projects impacted, as well as time and money lost. I hope that the Minister will set out how we can address these issues and bring ATAS and its processes into the light.
Recognising the importance of ensuring that we continue to attract talent was also part of our work last year on how we not only secure our borders and control immigration, but widen routes for attracting and supporting talent, particularly where our economy needs to grow in new ways, supporting our future competitiveness in areas of the economy. As the hon. Member acknowledged, it is important to get the balance right between attracting talent and ensuring that we have the right checks in place. Many new technologies have both civilian and military uses, and we are in a more complex world. As proliferation risks grow, research intended to do good can, in the wrong hands, lead to the transfer of sensitive skills, knowledge, networks, relationships and technological capability. That is what ATAS is designed to prevent. Once sensitive knowledge is shared, it cannot be recovered.
I therefore welcome today’s debate on the academic technology approval scheme. It is important to recognise that ATAS is a national security vetting process, not a routine administrative check. It exists to protect the United Kingdom from the unlawful transfer of sensitive knowledge and technologies that could also contribute to the development of weapons of mass destruction or advanced military capabilities. It is important that we remain open to global research talent while rigorously protecting our national security, and that we ensure that security and openness strengthen each other when done well.
The demand for ATAS is a sign of the importance of growing areas of research in our universities. Demand has increased sharply in recent years as the scheme has expanded to reflect the growing and evolving threat landscape. Applications have risen from about 17,000 in 2017 to approximately 35,000 last year. Despite that growth, the vast majority of applications—about 98%—are processed within the 30 working-day service standard, and many are resolved more quickly. Some applications may be more straightforward and present no security concerns, but where cases are more complex or potentially high-risk, there may be a requirement for additional security checks, not all of which are within the FCDO’s or the Home Office’s control. That can take more time—sometimes more time than we might like. I recognise that decisions taking longer than the standard timeframe can have a personal impact, particularly if there are compassionate circumstances that have an impact on applicants and create uncertainty for universities.
Work is under way to look at faster triaging, providing surge support for more complex cases, and IT improvements, and there is ongoing engagement with universities. That is important, because we recognise the challenge. As with other visa circumstances with universities, which might do their own checks for international students, it is important that we recognise that universities and students have start times, and it is important that we do not push into a backlog or create issues just before university term time begins. We continue to do work to smooth that by supporting universities in how they do their checks and looking at how ATAS certificates might need to be issued in advance of visas being issued by the Home Office. The Home Office continues to work with the Department for Education and universities to improve that.
At the same time, the Government continue to invest heavily in research and development. In a sense, we are a victim of our own priorities. The increase in demand for ATAS is a reflection of the Government’s own priorities and our recognition that it is important to attract talent in the shorter and the longer term. Work is going on through association with Horizon Europe, long-term funding in AI, clean energy and the life sciences, with deepening science and defence partnerships across regions including the Indo-Pacific, over which I oversee some of our work. ATAS supports that ambition by ensuring that the UK’s research environment remains secure and welcoming to global talent, in good faith. We want to support that work in the UK and internationally.
Before I conclude, I want to make some remarks about the constituency case that the hon. Member highlighted. I very much appreciate that communication with the FCDO has been part of, and a driver for, today’s debate. It is regrettable that the hon. Lady experienced that difficulty and did not receive clear information about her inquiry at an earlier stage, particularly given the sad circumstances. I am grateful to her for the support that she gave her constituent and for telling us that he got a positive certificate and, importantly, was able to spend time with his family in those very sad circumstances.
The hon. Lady said that when we knew about the situation and it got to the team, the application was expedited and the process was completed within, I think, 14 days. That is important to us. I have seen such work previously in the Home Office, so I know that it will have been important to those teams too. That was well inside the published service standard, and it shows what can happen when we mobilise teams in compassionate circumstances. Where there are lessons to learn, it is important that we do so. I appreciate that there was a delay in the correspondence that the hon. Lady received over the Christmas period, but we continue to try to improve our service standards in relation to correspondence. That is a priority matter for the Department as a whole.