Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will estimate the effect on the public purse of replacing maintenance loans with maintenance grants.

Replacing maintenance grants with loans will reduce grant expenditure by around £2.5bn per year by 2020-21 and therefore make a substantial contribution to reducing the deficit. From that new baseline position, entirely replacing the new, larger maintenance loans with grants would increase grant expenditure – and the deficit – by around £8bn per year.