Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average annual net effect of student loan interest payments on the public purse was in each of the last five years.

Student loan repayments are not broken down by interest versus loan portions, meaning that “student loan interest repayments” are not directly measured.

The interest rate charged on a student loan does not affect the amount a borrower repays on a student loan in a given month because the repayment is a proportion of income over a threshold. Unlike mortgages, a higher interest rate on a loan does not lead to higher repayments. As such, in terms of cashflow, total repayment levels in the last 5 years are not greatly affected by increased interest rates.

Statistics on income contingent repayments and interest added to student loans, at a national level, are published by the Student Loans Company here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/student-loans-in-england-2022-to-2023.