To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many individual student loan accounts were passed to debt collection agencies from the Student Loans Company in each financial year from 1997-98 to 2005-06; and if he will make a statement. (75320)

The table shows the number of pre-1998 mortgage-style student loan accounts with debt collection agencies, as at 31 March of each year. Data for 1997/08 are not available.

On average, referrals to debt collection agents represent 1.8 per cent. of the total number of borrowers. These data should not be equated with the number of loan accounts in arrears; cases may be referred more than once in a year and debt collection agents are asked to locate borrowers as well as to collect loans.

There was a particular drive in 2004/05 to tackle longstanding cases via external collection agents but the volume of referrals to collection agents, and the numbers of accounts in arrears are now decreasing.

There have been no referrals to collection agents of cases under the post 1998 income contingent loan scheme.