Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of undergraduate students from Wales undertaking degree courses at universities in England.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is responsible for collecting and publishing data on the UK higher education sector. These data are shared with the department and include a wide range of information on student courses.
Figure 7 of HESA’s ‘Higher Education Student Statistics: UK, 2024/25’ reports the number of enrolments for UK providers based on student permanent address prior to study. According to Figure 7, in the academic year 2024/25, there were 25,820 undergraduate student enrolments with a Welsh permanent address at Higher Education providers in England.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Smith of Malvern on 12 February (HL14125), what is the breakdown of the students from England who participated in the Erasmus programme in 2020 by English region.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In 2020, the regional breakdown of higher education students from England who participated in the Erasmus+ programme was:
All Erasmus+ data is publicly available.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what additional resources they are putting into careers guidance in schools and colleges to help reduce potential future increases in the number of young people not in education, employment or training.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department is expanding opportunities for young people through high-quality careers guidance and meaningful work experience. Evidence shows that strong careers provision can reduce the risk of a young person being not in education, employment or training by 8% after age 16 and 18.
Working with the Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC), we continue to raise quality through investment in careers hubs, employer networks and careers leader training, all of which help schools and colleges improve their provision. The CEC is introducing OnTrack+, a data tool that helps educators identify emerging support needs for learners in years 7 to 11, strengthening engagement and supporting successful post-16 transitions.
The department’s ambition is for every young person to have two weeks’ worth of work experience during their secondary education. We are investing in pilot activities to identify and remove barriers to high-quality placements, with targeted support for disadvantaged cohorts and learners in state-funded alternative provision.
Asked by: Lord Cruddas (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many children are not registered for school in the last year in which statistics are available for.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information is collected from local authorities in England on a termly basis on how many children they have recorded as being in elective home education (EHE) or who are children missing education (CME). On the census data for the 2025/26 autumn term, local authorities reported 126,000 children in EHE and 34,700 CME.
As there is currently no legal requirement for parents to inform local authorities that their children are not in school, this information is based only on those parents of which local authorities are aware.
As part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are introducing a requirement for every local authority in England and Wales to hold compulsory Children Not in School registers.
Asked by: Lord Harper (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 16 March (HL Deb col 732), what steps, if any, they plan to take to ensure that university leaders who fail to take action to combat antisemitism are held accountable.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The E6 condition of registration, introduced by the Office for Students (OfS) on 1 August last year, requires registered higher education providers to have strong policies to prevent and address harassment, including antisemitic abuse. The government expects universities to comply fully with E6 and the OfS has powers to act where institutions breach this condition of registration.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of university undergraduate courses offer a placement year.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is responsible for collecting and publishing data on the UK higher education sector. This data is shared with the department and includes a wide range of information on student courses.
The department only has placement data on courses that have students enrolled on. For the 2024/25 academic year, approximately 23.9% of undergraduate courses with students enrolled on had the option of taking a placement with a length of at least one year.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the median salary of primary school head teachers in England in each year since 1996–97 in (1) cash terms, and (2) real terms adjusted for inflation.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The tables attached reflect median pay for classroom teachers, headteachers and ‘other leadership’ teachers. Deputy heads are grouped into the ‘other leadership’ category, alongside assistant heads. Median pay is not published for deputy heads separately but has been produced for this response and included.
Statistics for median teacher pay extending back to 1996/97 are not readily available. The available time series goes back to 2010/11, the first year of the School Workforce Census.
These figures are adjusted for inflation by using the Consumer Price Index from Office for Budget Responsibility Economic and Fiscal Outlook from March 2026, on a financial year basis.
Headteacher pay in maintained schools is determined by a calculation set out in the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document. Once the school has been allocated to one of eight headteacher groups, largely based on size of school by pupil numbers, the individual salary range of the headteacher is determined by the governing body within the minimum and maximum of the respective headteacher group range. The salary range of any deputy or assistant headteachers is then determined in the context of the headteachers salary.
In exceptional circumstances, schools can pay their headteachers up to 25% above the maximum of their headteacher group or go beyond 25% if supported by an independently-assessed and approved business case.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden and Solihull East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the proposed fast‑track route for early intervention will be defined, including eligibility thresholds, time limits and approved evidence‑based programmes.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
To achieve this, we will work with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), and NHS England to enable better information sharing between health professionals and local authorities. This will speed up the process of matching children to the right specialist provision package and create a more direct route to specialist provision for those with the most complex needs at the earliest stage.
We have asked for feedback on this proposal as part of the consultation and will build on these responses to develop this policy in partnership with parents, local authorities, settings, DHSC and NHS England.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prospective chairs of school governors and prospective school governors are required each year to carry out identity checks using Verifile.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department does not hold this data, as it does not carry out identity checks on maintained school governors or those on local governing bodies in academy trusts. The governing body for a maintained school and the academy trust for a trust local governing body are responsible for ensuring such checks are conducted.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what mechanisms are in place to monitor local authorities’ compliance with statutory duties relating to high needs element 3 funding; and whether her Department plans to strengthen oversight to ensure that all eligible students receive appropriate support in a timely manner.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Where a child or young person with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) has an education, health and care (EHC) plan, the local authority must secure the special educational provision specified in the plan. The allocation of top-up funding to the school or college often helps secure that provision.
Our national guidance on allocation of high needs top-up funding (sometimes called element 3) is set out in section 7 of the 2026 to 2027 high needs funding operational guide here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-funding-arrangements-2026-to-2027/high-needs-funding-2026-to-2027-operational-guide#highneedstopfunding. This includes guidance that local authorities should collaborate with neighbouring local authorities when reviewing and developing their top-up funding bands, with a view to bringing more consistency to the levels of top-up funding for schools and colleges used routinely for placements by more than one local authority. The guidance also refers to conditions of grant that require local authorities to make timely payments of top-up funding.
In February, we launched our SEND reform consultation to build on existing good practice and improve inclusivity and support in schools and colleges. These include reforms to the allocation of funding and to accountability, which will create a simpler, fairer and more collaborative system focused on outcomes, replacing bureaucracy with clarity and trust.