§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the minimum age at which borrowers with existing student loans will continue to be repaying such loans; when the decision was taken to raise the age limit from 50 years; and for what reasons Parliament was not informed. [28911]
§ Dr. HowellsThe cancellation arrangements applying to the existing student loan scheme are set out in the Education (Student Loans) Regulations 1998. The maximum age at which a borrower might be repaying his or her loan under these arrangements is 59 in cases where the borrower was aged 40 or over when the loan was taken out, and 49 in other cases. We have no plans to change the cancellation arrangements for borrowers under the existing scheme.
The Government are proposing that the age at which the liability to repay income contingent loans is cancelled should be 65. This is because income contingent loans will typically be repaid over a longer period than loans made under the existing scheme. The decision to set the age limit for cancellation at 65 was one of a number of detailed decisions about the implementation of the new arrangements that we have made since we first announced our proposals for student support on 23 July 1997. It was published in the "Progress Report on New Student Support Arrangements in Higher Education from 1998–99" which was placed in the Library and distributed to other interested parties last month.
The cancellation arrangements applying to borrowers taking out income contingent loans from 1998–99 will be set out in regulations to be made later this year under the Teaching and Higher Education Bill, once enacted.