All posts tagged: capped

Politics Home Article | Student Loans To Be Capped At 6 Per Cent As Iran War Drives Inflation

Politics Home Article | Student Loans To Be Capped At 6 Per Cent As Iran War Drives Inflation

Published by Sam Flores

(Alamy) 4 min read22 min Interest rates on some student loans will be capped at six per cent from September amid the conflict in the Middle East, the government has announced. The cap will be applied to Plan 2 and Plan 3 loans. The former has been the subject of growing debate in recent weeks, with the government facing calls to ease the financial burden it is putting on graduates. Minister for Skills, Jacqui Smith, said on Tuesday that while “the risk of global shocks” from the war is “beyond our control, protecting people here is not.” The move means that no graduate faces an interest rate above six per cent from September for the 2026-27 academic year. The interest applied to student loans is fixed by academic year, using the Retail Prices Index (RPI) value for the year to March of the first year (in this case, March 2026). It comes after the student loan system has faced fresh scrutiny in recent months, following the government’s decision to freeze the threshold at which graduates start to repay …

Politics Home Article | Political Donations From Overseas To Be Capped At £100,000

Politics Home Article | Political Donations From Overseas To Be Capped At £100,000

Published by Sam Flores

3 min read2 hr Political donations from British citizens living overseas will be capped at £100,000 as part of a major reform to the role of money in politics. The government has also imposed an immediate and retrospective ban on all political donations made via cryptocurrency.  The new restrictions on who can donate to political parties were announced on Wednesday in response to an independent review by former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft, which warned that the “persistent problem” of foreign interests seeking to influence British political life had become “more acute” in recent years.  The new rules are expected to be felt particularly by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which has received around £12m in the last year from Thailand-based British businessman Christopher Harborne, and which is the only political party to have received donations in cryptocurrency.  The review was commissioned in December by Communities Secretary Steve Reed. The Labour government has committed to implementing its 17 recommendations in full. Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Reed said the decision to cap donations retrospectively was necessary to prevent exploitation of …

Private special school fees capped in profit crackdown

Private special school fees capped in profit crackdown

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles Ministers will for the first time cap the fees independent special schools can charge councils for provision, with the education secretary vowing to “crack down on providers who put profit before children”. The institutions will be subject to “new national price bands” which will “end unjustified fee variation for the same provision, giving councils the confidence to challenge poor value placements”. And new “statutory SEND-specific standards” will “ensure every independent special school delivers consistent, high-quality support and clear outcomes for pupils”. It comes after reports suggested the government planned to set an upper limit of £60,000 on fees. This has not been officially announced, nor have the price bands being proposed been set out. The schools white paper, due to be published next week, will also ensure “full cost transparency will show exactly how public money is spent”. And ministers will give councils a “formal say” on new or expanding independent provision “so places are created where children actually need them”. Soaring spending exposed Schools Week has revealed the …