Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-01-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment his Department has made of the extent to which the level of student debt affects the outcome of students’ applications for a mortgage.

Joseph Johnson

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Mortgage Market Review, introduced in April 2014, requires mortgage lenders to assess individuals’ ability to repay their loans. The Council for Mortgage Lenders has advised that individuals who have a student loan and are earning over the relevant repayment threshold may have higher committed expenditures and lower net incomes and this could mean they are unable to borrow as much as an equivalent individual who is not repaying a student loan.