Mark Leftly: Student loans - a sale waiting to happen if the Tories win

Westminster Outlook And here’s one of the first things a Tory government will privatise: the student loans book in England and Wales.

The Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable blocked the £12bn sale this summer, appeasing his own party’s activists, who have been so bruised by their party’s unexpected experience of Coalition power. He said there was no “public benefit” – that a sale would not help reduce public debt.

Interesting, then, that the Conservative universities minister Greg Clark said in a written answer this week that “work is ongoing” and that a sale will not take place in “this parliament”. In other words, interested companies should get their bids ready for as soon as the Tories get rid of those pesky Lib Dems.

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