HC Deb 01 March 2004 vol 418 cc678-9W
Chris Grayling

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many graduates are not making repayments on their income contingent student loans; and what proportion of the total number of such loans outstanding this represents. [155452]

Alan Johnson [holding answer 27 February 2004]

The information requested is not available centrally.

Borrowers enter repayment status in the April following graduation or otherwise leaving their course. There were 1,409,000 borrowers in the United Kingdom with income contingent student loan accounts at the end of the financial year 2002–03 of whom approximately 298,000 had accounts in repayment status. Borrowers can have accounts both in repayment status and not in repayment status if, for example, they have attended a second course of higher education.

No repayments are due from borrowers who are not in repayment status, although just under 15,000 borrowers made early repayments voluntarily in 2002–03. No repayments are deducted from income-contingent borrowers in repayment status whose income falls below £10,000 per annum. Repayments of income-contingent loans are, apart from a few exceptions, collected through the tax system. Most repayments are notified to the Student Loans Company more than one year after the end of the tax year, after which time has to be allowed for reconciliation with their records. Therefore the data on the number of borrowers with income-contingent loans where repayments are not being deducted because the borrower's income is below the repayment threshold, or for some other reason, are not yet available.

Mr. Cousins

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what projections he has made of(a) the size of official student loan debt, (b) the likely annual interest accruing on that debt, (c) the likely total repayments of (i) debt and (ii) interest on that debt and (d) the likely subsidy required from his Department to support the official student loan debt in (A) 2007 and (B) 2009; and on what assumptions his calculations are based. [155538]

Alan Johnson [holding answer 23 February 2004]

Estimates of the cost of subsidising both maintenance and fee loans in 2006–07 were set out in the Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) published on 8 January alongside the Higher Education Bill. These estimates—rather than projections—are based on the different scenarios set out in the RIA. Because of the nature of a variable scheme, the costs vary greatly according to the decisions that both higher education institutions and students take, for example the number of students who decide to defer their fees, and the pattern of fee charging that emerges.

The economic cost of providing student loans is made up of the interest rate subsidy on loans together with the cost of any loans which are never repaid, for example loans written-off after 25 years or on death.

Copies of the Regulatory Impact Assessment were placed in the Library of the House; it is also available on the Department for Education and Skills website.