Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has conducted an (a) impact and (b) equality assessment of the effect that freezing the student repayment threshold at £21,000 for five years will have on (i) low-income, (ii) women, (iii) BAME and (iv) disabled graduates; whether she plans to amend that threshold; and if she will make a statement.

The Department carried out an Equality Analysis in November 2015, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/479559/bis-15-635-freezing-student-loan-repayment-threshold-equality-analysis.pdf. We have already announced that the threshold will be frozen for five years from April 2016, and it will be reviewed for April 2021, and we have no plans to change this.