Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the effect on the estimated RAB charge on student loans of replacing university maintenance grants with maintenance loan support up to £8,400 per year.

The RAB charge is an estimate and will always fluctuate. Switching grants to loans will increase the estimated write-off for some borrowers, and increases the aggregated RAB charge. We are consulting on freezing the repayment threshold, which may mean that overall the RAB charge would reduce.

My Department publishes an updated estimate of the RAB charge each year, close to the time of the publication of BIS accounts. The most recent estimate of the RAB charge was published on 14 July 2015. The estimate, together with an updated simplified version of the model for calculating the RAB charge can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/stepmodel