Asked by: Alex Easton (Independent - North Down)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring schools to (a) implement (i) individual healthcare plans for pupils at risk of anaphylaxis and (ii) other allergy policies and (b) provide regular staff training on allergy management.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Governing bodies must ensure that the arrangements they put in place are sufficient to meet their statutory responsibilities and that policies, plans, procedures and systems are properly and effectively implemented. This includes the duty under Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions and the duties under the Equality Act 2010.
Statutory guidance, ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’, recommends the use of individual healthcare plans as good practice. They can help schools support pupils with medical conditions, providing clarity about what needs to be done, when and by whom. The school, healthcare professionals and parents should agree, based on evidence, when a healthcare plan would be appropriate. ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’ can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ce6a72e40f0b620a103bd53/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions.pdf.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps is she taking to improve the use of technology to support inclusion for children with SEND in schools in Bournemouth.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Assistive technology has the potential to improve early intervention and enable more children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to achieve and thrive in a mainstream setting, by supporting both confidence and independence.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has announced £740 million for high needs capital in 2025/26 to support children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. Local authorities can use this to create new places, but also to adapt classrooms to be more accessible for children with SEND, including through investment in assistive technology interventions to support pupils in mainstream settings. Of this £740 million, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council has been allocated over £4 million in 2025/26.
We will continue to build our evidence base on the potential for assistive technology to improve inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, including testing a pilot of assistive technology lending libraries through the SEND and alternative provision Change Programme. This will allow up to 4,000 mainstream schools in participating local authorities to borrow and trial technology on a temporary basis, to identify the right products to support their pupils.
Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce waiting times for the completion of Education and Health Care Plans.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department wants to ensure that, where required, education, health and care (EHC) plan assessments are progressed promptly and, if needed, plans are issued as quickly as possible so that children and young people can access the support they need.
Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have special educational needs that require an EHC plan. Plans must be issued within twenty weeks of the needs assessment commencing so that children and young people can access the support they need.
The department continues to monitor and work closely with local authorities that have issues with EHC plan timeliness. Where there are concerns about a local authority’s capacity to make the required improvements, we help them to identify the barriers to this and put in place an effective recovery plan. This includes, where needed, securing a specialist special educational needs and disabilities adviser.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had recent discussions with NHS Employers on planned changes to funding for Level 7 apprenticeships.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity.
From January 2026, the government will no longer fund level 7 apprenticeships, equivalent to master’s degree level, except for young apprentices under the age of 22. This will enable apprenticeship opportunities to be rebalanced towards young people, whose rate of apprenticeship starts has fallen by almost 40% over the last decade.
This decision was informed by a wide range of evidence, including Skills England’s analysis of official apprenticeship statistics and engagement with relevant stakeholders, including NHS employers.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of changes to funding for Level 7 apprenticeships on costs to the public purse in each of the next five years.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity.
From January 2026, we will no longer fund level 7 apprenticeships, equivalent to master’s degree level, except for young apprentices under the age of 22. This will enable government funding to be rebalanced towards young people and training at lower levels.
Apprenticeship spend is dependent on employers choosing to offer apprenticeships and learners choosing to take them.
The department does not publish information on projected apprenticeship spend.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of people working for state schools who possess a Level 7 apprenticeship qualification.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The requested information is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether funding for family hubs will be included in the Child Poverty Strategy.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. The Child Poverty Taskforce meeting in January focused on the crucial role of local services, including family hubs, in reducing the impact of poverty.
Our new publication ‘Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life’ sets out that we are making a significant investment of over £500 million which will build back crucial family services and provide high quality support to parents and children from pregnancy to age five. Proposals include:
This publication is accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/giving-every-child-the-best-start-in-life.
The Hubs will help tackle the stain of child poverty ahead of our ambitious Child Poverty Strategy, due to be published in the autumn.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools in (a) Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency and (b) Staffordshire are able to offer high quality music education through (i) the national curriculum and (ii) in music education.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
As part of the government’s Opportunity Mission, the department wants to widen access to music education.
Music Hubs continue to play a vital role across England, with grant funding of £76 million for the 2025/26 academic year. This includes nearly £2.2 million for the Hub partnership led by The Music Partnership, covering Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford and Wrekin, and includes support for schools in Newcastle-under-Lyme and wider Staffordshire.
The department is also investing £2 million to support the Music Opportunities Pilot over four years, helping disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs and disabilities learn to play instruments or sing to a high standard in schools across 12 pilot areas. This includes Sir Thomas Boughey Academy in Newcastle-under-Lyme. The government established the Curriculum and Assessment Review to seek to deliver a rich, broad, inclusive and innovative curriculum, including music. The final report and government response will be published this autumn. Following this, we will legislate so that academies will teach the reformed national curriculum, alongside maintained schools. This will ensure music is an entitlement for pupils in every state-funded school.
Asked by: David Smith (Labour - North Northumberland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department considers future demographic changes when planning school funding.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
School funding will increase by £4.2 billion over the Spending Review period, meaning core school funding will total £65.9 billion by 2028/29. This additional funding will provide an above real terms per pupil increase on the core schools budget.
The majority of school funding is allocated on a per pupil basis through the National Funding Formula (NFF) on a lagged funding system, where schools are funded on the basis of their pupil numbers in the previous October census. This arrangement helps to give schools more certainty over funding levels and is particularly important in giving individual schools time to adjust to demographic change before experiencing the funding impact.
Local authorities are also allocated funding through the NFF for growth and falling rolls, which they can use to support schools experiencing significant growth in pupil numbers, to support schools facing a temporary drop in pupil numbers, or to help meet the revenue costs of removing or repurposing surplus places.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to promote digital literacy education in schools to encourage the responsible use of mobile technology.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Within the computing curriculum pupils are taught to use technology safely, responsibly, respectfully and securely, to keep personal information private, to recognise unacceptable behaviour, and to understand where to seek support.
Within citizenship and relationships, sex and health education (RSHE), pupils learn how to identify misleading and malicious information and to counter the effects of negative and harmful news, events and information online.
The Curriculum and Assessment Review’s interim report states a renewed focus on digital literacy is key to responding to the rise of artificial intelligence. The department will consider how best to implement the Review’s recommendations following the final report.
The department’s ‘Mobile phones in schools’ guidance is clear that schools should prohibit the use of devices with smart technology throughout the school day to prevent disruption to pupils’ learning.