Student Loans Company Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Emma Hardy
Main Page: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)Department Debates - View all Emma Hardy's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(7 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Joseph Johnson
The hon. Gentleman is of course right that the nature of fraud is such that we only really have a sighting shot at understanding its extent in any system. We have to look at comparable levels of ineligible payments across different types of provider. As I said, we do not see more fraud in the so-called alternative providers than we see in the HEFCE-funded public part of the higher education system.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Last Thursday, senior NHS leaders told me about the growing desperation to grow our own senior NHS professionals. Such people will have to pay all the money back because their earnings will be above the threshold, so will the Minister look again at the interest rate they will have to pay and the fact that they will start to accumulate interest before they even graduate?
Joseph Johnson
The student loan product is heavily subsidised overall. Around 45% of loans are consciously written off by the Government as a deliberate investment in the country’s skills base. We do not want any financial barriers to access, so we make the money available on very favourable terms. The interest rate is a means of ensuring that graduates who go on to have higher than average lifetime earnings make a contribution towards the overall cost and sustainability of higher education, ensuring that it continues to drive access and widen participation systematically across the piece.