Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an estimate of the number of graduates on Plan 2 loans that have debt interest growing faster than the loans can be paid off.

The number of England-domiciled Student Finance England borrowers with Plan 2 loans which have become liable to repay where interest accrued faster than the loan was being paid off in the 2025/26 financial year was 3.53 million (to the nearest 10,000). For these borrowers, the amount of interest accrued during the year was greater than the amount repaid. This figure includes borrowers who made repayments that were lower than the interest accrued, as well as borrowers who made no repayments during the year because they were not required to do so, including where their earnings were below the repayment threshold.