Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what his latest estimate is of the RAB charge for (a) student loans after 2012, (b) loans issued to part-time students, (c) loans issued to students in the Affiliated Loan Programme for Students, (d) Advanced-Learner Loans and (e) loans issued to non-English EU students.

We estimate the RAB charge on student loans issued after 2012 to be around 45%. We estimate the RAB charge for loans issued to part-time students to be around 65%.

We do not estimate a separate RAB charge for students at Alternative Providers.

The 2012 impact assessment on the introduction of 24+ Advanced Learning Loans stated that we anticipated this RAB charge would be 60% of the total loan amount. Now that we are beginning to receive figures on actual learner numbers, we are reviewing the assumptions within the RAB charge model. An updated estimate of the RAB charge on 24+ Advanced Loans will be published in July 2014 in the BIS Accounts.

We do not estimate a separate RAB charge for non-English EU students.

The actual cost of issuing student loans will be dependent on future macro-economic circumstances, in particular earnings and we will continue to update our forecasts on a regular basis to take account of changes to short term and long term macro-economic assumptions.