Recruitment of Teachers

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Barran]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve recruitment of teachers.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, teachers are the most important factor in a child’s education. We are committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament. We have made good progress, implementing the 5.5% pay award and announcing £233 million for trainee bursaries. The best recruitment strategy is a strong retention strategy. We have increased early career retention payments and are reducing teacher workload and improving well-being.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her reply, but could she be a bit clearer about the Government’s target of 6,500 new teachers? As she rightly pointed out, retention is extremely important. In the last year for which I think there is published data, there were just over 44,000 teachers recruited while just over 43,500 left the profession, leaving 469,000 in the profession—an increase of 27,000 since 2010. Can we be clear about the timing of the Government’s target of 6,500? Is that 6,500 more teachers net by September 2028 compared to September 2024? Will she also confirm whether those teachers will be going into shortage subjects in secondary or across primary, secondary and colleges?