Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 23 February 2018 to Question 128612, whether the proposed Sharia-compliant alternative student finance product will be available for students applying for university in the 2018-19 academic year.

As previously stated, we are currently working with Islamic Finance experts to design an alternative product that meets Islamic financial principles while delivering an equivalent outcome to the main student loan system. This work is complex and we will provide an update and a timetable in the summer.

It can typically take two years to introduce a new student finance product, which would rule out launching for Academic Year 2018/19.