Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that Pupil Premium Plus is not absorbed into school budgets but is spent spent specifically on adopted the children that qualified for the payment.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The pupil premium grant provides funding to schools to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. ‘Pupil premium plus’ (PP+) refers to the portion of the pupil premium grant for children who are looked after by the local authority or were previously looked after by a local authority or other state care.
Pupil premium funding, including PP+, is not a personal budget for individual pupils. It is for schools to decide how to allocate the funding after assessing the needs of their disadvantaged cohort, including looked after and previously looked after children. Statutory guidance is clear that the school’s designated teacher should ensure the specific needs of the PP+ cohort are understood by the school’s staff and reflected in how the school uses PP+ to support these children. They should encourage parents and guardians’ involvement in deciding how the PP+ is used.
Maintained schools and academies must publish strategy statements setting out their planned use of pupil premium.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to announce the 10 trial local authorities for the Kinship Allowance Pilot paid at an equivalent rate to the fostering National Minimum Allowance.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children, and the role of local authorities to support them.
The department recently closed the expression of interest process for local authorities to apply to deliver the Kinship Allowance Pilot in their areas. This will be for eligible kinship carers within the pilot areas to apply for via their local authorities. The department will announce the successful local authorities in due course.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the Curriculum Review to provide algorithm literacy and AI education to help children understand that AI systems can have inaccurate outputs; and what steps will be taken through the curriculum to ensure that young people are educated on the potential harms of AI including a) Deepfakes and CSAM content, b) AI generated online fraud and scams, c) Chatbot algorithmic biases.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department has accepted the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s recommendations for computing and are committed to going further through explicitly including AI within the curriculum, and exploring a potential Level 3 qualification in data science and AI. This will empower students to harness the opportunities of AI, whilst navigating its risks responsibly.
We will work with subject experts to ensure that AI and issues like bias in technology will be included within the refreshed computing curriculum in an age-appropriate way. The exact content will be determined following engagement with experts, and we will publicly consult on the draft proposals next year.
It is worth noting that algorithms and online harms are currently covered in the curriculum, through computing and relationships, sex and health education (RSHE). In July, the government published updated RSHE statutory guidance introducing new content on AI, online safety and pornography, which will be mandatory from 1 September 2026.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data she has on the number of children who are irregular migrants and enrolled in schools; and what the estimated annual cost is for educating those children.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The requested information is not held by the department.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of awarding the Teachers’ Pension Scheme administration contract to Tata Consultancy Services on national security, service standards and domestic employment; and whether UK-based providers were invited to bid for this contract.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The procurement to appoint a new administrator of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme was conducted under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015), which aims to ensure an open, transparent and fair competition. During the procurement exercise several UK companies participated in the formal process. This procurement followed the standard due diligence checks and the standard departmental governance procedures. These checks did not highlight any concerns in relation to national security.
As part of the assessment process the potential bidders were required to contractually commit to the mandatory requirements to meet all necessary IT security standards. Domestic employment was not a part of the evaluation criteria for potential providers. The evaluation criteria did assess a potential provider’s capability to meet the required service standards.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of exam support for students with dyslexia.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member for Fylde to the answer of 21 November 2025 to Question 90919.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the value for money of management and service charges paid by academy and free schools to related parties in England.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Academy trusts are permitted to use a proportion of their funding to pay for central services for their schools. This can be more efficient and cheaper than individual academies running or procuring the functions themselves. Where trusts top slice for central services, they must be transparent by disclosing in their annual accounts the services they deliver centrally and the trust’s charging policy.
The ’Academy trust handbook’ sets out the requirements related party transactions (RPTs). The handbook requires that trusts must:
The handbook is available in full at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-trust-handbook.
The department has also published a guide on managing conflicts of interests and RPTs to support trusts, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/related-party-transactions-information-for-academy-trusts/managing-conflicts-of-interests-related-party-relationships-and-related-party-transactions-good-practice-guide.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, to provide a breakdown of (i) the total number (ii) the age of children taken into care in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The latest figures on the number of children taken into care for reasons of court orders or police protection, emergency or child assessment orders in England by age are shown in the attached table.
The latest figures on all children starting to be looked after in England by legal status and separately by age is published in the statistical release: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2025#explore-data-and-files.
The table can be located at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a70a7aef-adc9-46be-b94b-08de28d609b2.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department provides to local authorities on support for schools in cases of (a) snow and (b) other extreme weather.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is for individual settings and responsible bodies to decide on closures based on their own risk assessment. Closures should be a last resort, and the priority is to keep settings open where it is safe to do so.
The department’s emergency planning guidance outlines how schools should provide remote education when schools are closed due to snow and other forms of extreme weather, such as extreme heat, flooding and storms. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/emergency-planning-and-response-for-education-childcare-and-childrens-social-care-settings/emergency-planning-and-response-for-education-childcare-and-childrens-social-care-settings#exam-and-assessment-disruption.
We have also issued non-statutory guidance on providing remote education guidance for schools, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/providing-remote-education-guidance-for-schools/providing-remote-education-guidance-for-schools. Both sets of guidance are available online for local authorities to use.
All schools and colleges must also have contingency plans to ensure exams and assessments proceed during disruption. Detailed guidance on managing exam or assessment disruption can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exam-system-contingency-plan-england-wales-and-northern-ireland/what-schools-and-colleges-should-do-if-exams-or-other-assessments-are-seriously-disrupted.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of covering the cost of (a) insurance and (b) DBS checks for employers taking on volunteer workers.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Keeping children safe could not be more important to this government, and schools and colleges as employers, play a critical role in this.
We support them to do this through our robust safeguarding framework, ‘Keeping children safe in education’, which is the statutory guidance that all schools and colleges must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
This includes robust safer recruitment procedures which are vital to deterring and preventing individuals who are unsuitable to work with children from securing employment or volunteering opportunities in schools and colleges.