Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether part-time students studying undergraduate courses using distance learning will be eligible to apply for maintenance loans for the 2019-20 academic year.

In March 2019, the government announced its decision not to extend maintenance loans to part-time distance learners in the 2019-20 academic year. This was on the grounds that the demand for a loan product aimed at part-time distance learners is unlikely to be high enough to make the introduction of such a loan economically viable.