Alternative Student Finance: Muslim Students

5. What progress his Department has made on developing an alternative student finance product for Muslim students.

We remain committed to delivering alternative student finance, and we are currently considering if and how it can be delivered as part of the lifelong loan entitlement.

It is estimated that 4,000 Muslim students a year do not go into higher education because there is no finance available that is compatible with their faith. David Cameron promised to fix this nine years ago. A good deal of work was done, but it seems to have run into the sand in the past few years. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for reaffirming the Government’s commitment to delivering on David Cameron’s promise, but can he give us an indication of how much longer Muslim students will have to wait?

We will provide a further update on alternative student finance as part of our response to the LLE consultation, which closed earlier this month.