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3 Jul 2003 : Column 439W—continued

Student Finance

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the impact on university applications from students in the London borough of Havering of the introduction of tuition fees. [115343]

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Alan Johnson: The latest available information, showing the proportion of 18-year-olds who applied for entry to HE, are shown in the table. The figures show that the fall in the proportion of students applying from Havering in 2002 was not reflected nationally.

18-year-old applicants to full-time and sandwich undergraduate courses in the UK

	Year of entry:
	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Students from Havering
Applicants	579	629	563	587	577	635	503
Population	2,647	2,948	2,993	2,823	2,769	2,758	2,756
Percentage applying	21.9	21.3	18.8	20.8	20.8	23.0	18.3
All students from the UK
Applicants	167,792	182,723	185,747	181,782	180,385	186,364	188,325
Population	667,593	726,736	747,354	741,836	727,022	735,605	737,343
Percentage applying	25.1	25.1	24.9	24.5	24.8	25.3	25.5

Source:

Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS)

Mr. Peter Duncan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when he last discussed with the Secretary of State for Scotland his plans to introduce top-up fees in England and Wales (a) before 12 June 2003 and (b) since 12 June 2003. [122295]

Alan Johnson: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has regular discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland on this issue.

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many individual students he estimates will receive the full £1,000 maintenance grant when it is introduced in 2005–06. [122561]

Alan Johnson [holding answer 30 June 2003]: I refer my hon. Friend to the response given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) on 6 February 2003, Official Report, column 357W.

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his estimate is of the level of Government subsidy that will be required to service the Government's higher education proposals for 2005–06 onwards. [122562]

Alan Johnson [holding answer 30 June 2003]: The publicly planned expenditure for higher education in England in 2005–06 is set out in "The future of higher education" Cmd 5735. Assessments of the costs of meeting the Government's policies for higher education beyond 2005–06 will be made as part of the 2004 Spending Review, work on which will commence shortly.

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the level of default on loans repayable to the student loans company was in (a) 2001–02 and (b) 2002–03; and if he will express the amount as a percentage of the total amount repaid. [122563]

Alan Johnson [holding answer 30 June 2003]: The answer covers only mortgage style loans in public ownership because these are repayable to the Student Loans Company. Income contingent loans are collected through the tax system. At the end of financial year 2001–02 the Student Loans Company had collected 85.5 per cent. of the amount recoverable since the scheme began. The amount recovered was £707 million against a recoverable amount of £827 million, leaving some £120 million overdue. The recoverable amount excludes early repayments, deferred repayment of loans and loans where liability to repay has been cancelled.

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of total income-contingent student loans outstanding he expects to be repaid, taking into account (a) deaths, (b) defaults, (c) write-offs on account of age, (d) moves abroad and (e) deferments owing to inadequate income. [122818]

Alan Johnson: For reasons of commercial confidentiality information on the percentage resource cost of student loans, and by implication the amount expected to be repaid or written off, is exempt from publication.

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if it is his policy that students who drop out of their courses should be required to pay a proportion of any approved top-up fee levied by their higher education institution. [122819]

Alan Johnson: The Government has no plans to prescribe the proportion of tuition fees to be paid by students who drop out of their courses when variable fees are introduced. At present, UUK and SCOP issue joint guidance covering the treatment of private contributions to fees when students withdraw from courses under the current system. Fees for such students are charged at the discretion of the institution concerned, taking account of the guidance, which states that these students should pay fees pro rata to their attendance.

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the average net present value is per £1,000 of existing student loan, taking into account deferments and the zero real interest rate. [122820]

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Alan Johnson: For reasons of commercial confidentiality, information on the percentage resource cost of student loans, and by implication the net present value of £1,000 of loans issued, is exempt from publication.

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many and what percentage of students are (a) eligible for education maintenance allowance and (b) claiming educational maintenance allowance, broken down by (a) private and (b) maintained sector status, in (A) each local education authority and (B) England. [122982]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The following table gives a breakdown, by local education authority, of the estimate of the number of students who are in further education and the percentage of those who are claiming Education Maintenance Allowance in the pilot schemes. The estimates of the number of students in further education are based on figures taken from the 1991 population census. Local education authorities do not collect information on how these figures are distributed between private and maintained sector status institutions.

Local education authority	Estimate of number of eligible students in Further Education	Number of students who have received EMA	Percentage of students who have received EMA
Barking and Dagenham	1,500	952	63.5
Barnsley	2,200	1,479	67.2
Birmingham	14,700	10,277	69.9
Bolton	3,600	2,230	61.9
Bradford	5,900	4,850	82.2
Brent	2,600	1,813	69.7
Camden	1,400	1,252	89.4
Cornwall	6,800	5,677	83.5
Coventry	4,400	2,386	54.2
Doncaster	3,500	2,543	72.7
Ealing	2,800	1,649	58.9
Gateshead	2,300	1,835	79.8
Greenwich	2,000	1,366	68.3
Hackney	2,000	1,977	98.9
Halton	1,400	1,081	77.2
Hammersmith and Fulham	1,200	829	69.1
Haringey	2,000	1,579	78.9
Hartlepool	1,000	816	81.6
Islington	1,500	1,309	87.3
Kingston upon Hull	2,400	1,922	80.1
Knowsley	2,000	1,913	95.7
Lambeth	2,300	1,737	75.5
Lancashire (East)	5,100	2,466	48.4
Leeds	8,500	4,857	57.1
Leicester	4,400	3,259	74.1
Lewisham	2,200	1,805	82.0
Lincolnshire (N.E.)	2,200	1,405	63.9
Liverpool	6,200	3,587	57.9
Luton	2,700	1,581	58.6
Manchester	6,300	4,456	70.7
Middlesbrough	1,900	1,578	83.1
Newham	2,700	2,589	95.9
North Tyneside	2,500	1,595	63.8
Northumberland	4,200	2,643	62.9
Nottingham	3,300	2,791	84.6
Oldham	3,000	2,624	87.5
Salford	1,800	1,127	62.6
Sandwell	2,500	2,041	81.6
Sheffield	5,600	3,716	66.4
Southampton	2,500	1,392	55.7
Southwark	1,900	1,467	77.2
South Tyneside	2,000	1,666	83.3
St. Helens	2,200	1,465	66.6
Stoke on Trent	2,600	2,607	100.1
Suffolk	6,800	2,617	38.5
Sunderland	3,500	2,260	64.6
Tameside	2,800	2,026	72.4
Tower Hamlets	2,200	2,765	125.7
Wakefield	4,300	2,201	51.2
Walsall	3,200	2,649	82.8
Waltham Forest	2,200	1,577	71.7
Wandsworth	1,700	1,013	59.6
Wigan	3,700	2,546	68.8
Wirral	4,100	2,540	61.9
Wolverhampton	3,200	2,359	73.7
Worcestershire	5,800	3,040	52.4
England total	189,300	131,782	(19)69.6

⁽¹⁹⁾ Average

Notes:

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is currently paid to young people who reside in one of the pilot areas, irrespective of the location of the institution they attend. We only have estimated figures for the number of young people living in each local education authority (LEA) area who participate in further education. In some areas, particularly those where there has been rapid population movements, the estimates carry some degree of uncertainty; therefore there are some anomalies in the right hand column.

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