To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many and what proportion of former students owing money to the Student Loans Company are making use of the five-year repayment holiday. (270337)

Certain graduates will be eligible for a repayment holiday from April 2012.

Graduates will be eligible to take a repayment holiday if they started a higher education course in 2008/09 or later, are taking out their first student loan and are due to enter repayment for the first time in April 2012 or later.

To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many graduates were repaying tuition fee loans at nine per cent. above the £15,000 earnings threshold in (a) 2006-07, (b) 2007-08 and (c) 2008-09. (270914)

Tuition fee loans were introduced in academic year 2006/07 for new students. Borrowers become liable to repay their loans from the April after they graduate or otherwise leave their course, if their annual income is above £15,000. Borrowers earning less than £15,000 are not required to make repayments. A student who took out a tuition fee loan in the first year they were available and who completes a typical three-year course will therefore become liable to begin repaying from April 2010, if their income is above the repayment threshold.

The Statistical First Release—Student Loans for Higher Education in England, Financial Year 2007-08 (Provisional) is available from the Student Loans Company website at:

www.slc.co.uk/pdf/slcsfr022008.pdf

This shows less than 100 students repaying fee loans at the end of 2006-07 and 200 at the end of 2007-08. Figures for 2008-09 will be published in July 2009.