Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the 2025/6 Annual Report and Accounts, for a breakdown of i) the £122m gross outturn on CDEL for "Support for the Digital, Broadcasting and Media sectors" described in SOPS 1.2 and ii) the £41m in gross outturn on RDEL for "Support for the Digital, Broadcasting and Media sectors" described in SOPS 1.1.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
The £122m gross outturn on CDEL for "Support for the Digital, Broadcasting and Media sectors" described in SOPS 1.2 is:
Purchase of goods and services | 56.0m |
Grants | 32.4m |
Staff costs | 31.7m |
Other costs, including investment in assets and finance costs | 2.0m |
|
|
Total | 122.1m |
The £41m in gross outturn on RDEL for "Support for the Digital, Broadcasting and Media sectors" described in SOPS 1.1 is:
Staff costs | 38.1m |
Other costs, including purchase of goods and services, grants and finance costs | 2.6m |
|
|
Total | 40.7m |
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, with reference to the DSIT Main Estimate Memorandum for 2026/7, for a breakdown by programme of the £219.0m in CDEL allocated to Science and Society.
Answered by Chris McDonald - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Science and Society CDEL allocation is delivered through the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Medical Sciences, which administer programmes on behalf of the Department for
Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, following the July 2026 Machinery of Government changes. The breakdown of the £219.0m Science and Society budget at Main Estimate 2026-27 is as follows:
Royal Society £113.0m
British Academy £51.9m
Royal Academy of Engineering £39.3m
Academy of Medical Sciences £14.7m
Total £219.0m
These allocations are based on the DSIT Main Estimate 2026-27 and may be refined over the course of the financial year.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2026 to Question 16513, if she can confirm that the information requested in that question is internally held.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The requested figures are derived from information submitted to HM Treasury through the WGA process and from subsequent consolidation and reporting activities undertaken by HM Treasury. The resulting information is therefore held internally as part of the preparation of the WGA.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to section 5 of the Government Efficiency Framework, if he will publish the most recent quarterly efficiency report provided by the Office of Rail and Road.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has not provided a quarterly efficiency report under section 5 of the Government Efficiency Framework. ORR is not currently required to submit quarterly efficiency reports to HM Treasury and has not formally been asked to report progress against savings and efficiency measures through that mechanism. ORR has, however, identified savings and technical efficiencies as part of the 2025 Spending Review process and reports on its financial and operational performance through its published governance and reporting arrangements, including its Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the answer of 2 July 2026 to question 13207, if he will publish a breakdown of the i) spending in Purchase of goods/services - Hosting and ii) spending in Purchase of goods/services - Social Care for a) 2023-24 and b) 2024-25.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Please see attached breakdown of spend for ‘Purchase of goods/services – Hosting’ and ‘Purchase of good and service - Social care’.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish data on the repayment rate of student loans, by nationality of borrower, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The attached table provides repayment rates for loans due for repayment for the 2020/21 to 2024/25 financial years. The repayment rate was calculated as the percentage of borrowers whose loan has passed its Statutory Repayment Due Date (SRDD, normally the April after the end of the course) and have made a payment in the financial year out of all borrowers whose loan has passed its SRDD. Although borrowers become liable for repayment from the SRDD, repayments are only due where earnings exceed the relevant threshold. Borrowers who remain below this threshold, or experience fluctuating incomes, are not required to make repayments on a continuous basis. Additionally, periods of further study, unemployment, or other life events may reduce earnings below the threshold, resulting in no repayments being collected despite being past the SRDD.
Eligibility for student finance is not based on nationality, but on immigration status and residency, ensuring that access to support reflects an individual’s established connection to the UK, rather than their nationality in isolation. To be eligible, a student must be ordinarily resident in England and be settled or have a recognised connection with the UK. Students must also have been ordinarily resident in the UK and Islands (Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and/or the British Overseas Territories) for the three years prior to the first day of the first academic year of their course. Some individuals are exempt from these requirements. For example, those with Refugee Status do not have to meet the standard settlement and residency criteria.
The nationality of all borrowers is checked and validated during the application process. Records listed as ‘unknown’ (in a very small number of mainly postgraduate borrower records) reflect legacy data quality issues in this field, which are being addressed by the Student Loans Company (SLC) and the department. This is a live management information dataset which is not static, and data can be updated over time as SLC update their records and re-categorise data.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the total value of student loans issued was by nationality of recipient in each of the last five years.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The attached table provides the total value of loans issued, by nationality of recipient, for the 2020/21 to 2024/25 academic years.
Eligibility for student finance is not based on nationality, but on immigration status and residency, ensuring that access to support reflects an individual’s established connection to the UK, rather than their nationality in isolation. To be eligible, a student must ordinarily be a resident in England and be settled or have a recognised connection with the UK. Students must also have been ordinarily resident in the UK and Islands (Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and/or the British Overseas Territories) for the three years prior to the first day of the first academic year of their course. Some individuals are exempt from these requirements. For example, those with Refugee Status do not have to meet the standard settlement and residency criteria.
The nationality of all borrowers is checked and validated during the application process. Records listed as ‘unknown’ (in a very small number of mainly postgraduate borrower records) reflect legacy data quality issues in this field, which are being addressed by the Student Loans Company (SLC) and the department. This is a live management information dataset which is not static, and data can be updated over time as SLC update their records and re-categorise data.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students who are not United Kingdom nationals received a student loan for the first time in each of the last five academic years, broken down by (a) nationality group and (b) type of loan.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The attached table provides the number of non-UK nationals who received a first loan for the 2020/21 to 2024/25 academic years, by loan type and nationality.
Eligibility for student finance is not based on nationality, but on immigration status and residency, ensuring that access to support reflects an individual’s established connection to the UK, rather than their nationality in isolation. To be eligible, a student must ordinarily be a resident in England and be settled or have a recognised connection with the UK. Students must also have been ordinarily resident in the UK and Islands (Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and/or the British Overseas Territories) for the three years prior to the first day of the first academic year of their course. Some individuals are exempt from these requirements. For example, those with Refugee Status do not have to meet the standard settlement and residency criteria.
The nationality of all borrowers is checked and validated during the application process. Records listed as ‘unknown’ (in a very small number of mainly postgraduate borrower records) reflect legacy data quality issues in this field, which are being addressed by the Student Loans Company (SLC) and the department. This is a live management information dataset which is not static, and data can be updated over time as SLC update their records and re-categorise data.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to answer Questions 296, 297, 298, 10703, 10704 and 10705 tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
I can confirm that responses have been submitted to the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to the questions referenced.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people have received a student loan from the Student Loans Company since 2005, broken down by nationality and by the academic year in which they first received a loan.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The data for the 2020/21 to 2024/25 academic years has previously been published in the attached file.
The department and the Student Loans Company (SLC) have recently strengthened the quality and consistency of their data and now hold robust information on current borrowers’ UK national status and nationality. However, due to GDPR requirements, records are not retained indefinitely. Borrowers whose loans were fully repaid or written off more than six years ago are removed from SLC systems.
As a result, the department does not hold a complete dataset with robust and consistent nationality information over this 20-year time-period. Figures on the number of borrowers by academic year and nationality across the full time series will therefore not fully reflect historical trends in nationality of borrowers.