Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what advice, support and guidelines are given to local authorities regarding home to school transport, and whether they are given guidance on the restrictions they can impose in cutting transport costs.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
The department’s home-to-school travel policy aims to make sure no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. My hon. Friend, the Minister for School Standards is keen to understand how well home-to-school transport supports all children to access educational opportunity and she is working with departmental officials on this. The department is aware of the challenges currently faced by local authorities in arranging home-to-school travel for all eligible children, and knows that the cost of doing so has increased in recent years. We are grateful for their considerable efforts in ensuring eligible children can continue to get to school.
Local authorities are required to arrange free home-to-school travel for all eligible children, but it is for them to decide what travel arrangements to make, for example, providing a bus pass, a school bus or a taxi.
The department publishes statutory guidance to assist local authorities in meeting their home-to-school travel duties, which is attached and is also accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-guidance. Departmental officials also host bi-monthly online meetings, to which all local authority school travel officers are invited to share good practice and seek advice from one another and the department.
Most of the increase in the cost of home-to-school travel can be attributed to transport for children with special educational needs. This is largely due to an increase in the number of children with education, health and care plans, and the number of those children who travel long distances to a school that can meet their needs. The department is committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools so fewer children need to travel long distances to schools that meet their needs. This will reduce home-to-school travel costs for local authorities over time.
Most central government funding for home-to-school travel is provided through the local government finance settlement, which is administered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The government recognises the challenges local authorities are facing. At the Autumn Budget 2024, we announced £1.3 billion of new grant funding in the 2025/26 financial year for local government to deliver core services. Together with local income from council tax and business rates, this will provide a real-terms increase in core spending power of around 3.2%.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to the statutory guidance Travel to school for children of compulsory school age published in January, whether parents are entitled to an explanation of why their child has been allocated a school placement in another education authority, whether such a decision can be made on the basis of transport costs alone, whether route risk assessments are required, and what account is taken of safety and accessibility of transport routes when allocating children to schools.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
School places are not allocated on the basis of transport costs, route risk assessments or the safety and accessibility of transport routes. The statutory school admissions code sets out how school places should be allocated and exists to ensure that school places are allocated in a fair and transparent way.
Parents express a preference as to the school they would like their child to attend. Schools must publish the criteria they will use to allocate places if they are over-subscribed, so that parents have as much idea as possible of their chance of securing a place at each school they are considering applying for. A school that has places available must admit all children who apply. If a school receives more applications than it has places available, it must allocate the available places in accordance with its admissions criteria. If a parent cannot be offered a place for their child at any of the schools for which they have applied, the local authority should offer a place at an alternative school. Parents refused a place at a school for which they have applied can appeal to an independent appeal panel.
Home-to-school travel is an integral part of the school system and seeks to ensure that no child of compulsory school age is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport, but it plays no part in the allocation of school places. Local authorities are required to arrange free home-to-school travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school if they live more than the statutory walking distance from it (2 miles for children under 8 and 3 miles for children aged 8 and over), or live within the walking distance but would not be able to walk there because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so.
Where a child’s nearest school is full and unable to offer them a place, the nearest school with a place available becomes their nearest school for home-to-school travel purposes. The school to which a child is eligible for free travel may be in a different local authority area to the one in which they live.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of funding allocations made so far for the Turing Scheme; and whether they have any plans to change the criteria used for the scheme to increase its effectiveness.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
In line with the department’s aims of advancing social justice and opportunity for young people, in 2024/25 the department has allocated funding by using the relative proportion of disadvantaged students in the application, with those applications with the highest proportion of disadvantaged students having their requested funding scaled down the least compared to those with the lowest proportion of disadvantaged students. All successful applicants received all the funding they had requested to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds with essential travel costs such as passports and visas, and for the extra costs faced by students with special educational or additional needs or disabilities.
The department will continue to keep the approach to funding under review, subject to future Spending Review allocations.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recent decline in the proportion of young people from Wales applying to go to university and what steps they will take to support the Welsh Government, in order to reduce educational inequalities.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
Education is a devolved matter. The Welsh Government is responsible for reducing inequalities in Wales.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what policies they have to reverse the significant drop in the numbers of foreign students applying to study in the UK.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
The government recognises that international students enrich university campuses, forge lifelong friendships with domestic students and become global ambassadors for the UK, as well as making a significant economic contribution to the higher education sector and the UK.
The department expects the UK to remain a highly attractive study destination. The UK has 4 universities in the top 10, and 15 in the top 100 and international students are offered the opportunity to remain in the UK on a graduate visa for 2 to 3 years after their studies come to an end. Admissions into universities for the 2024/25 academic year are ongoing and the department is closely monitoring them.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to reform the financial model for universities; and what assessment they have made of the financial problems faced by many parts of the higher education sector.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
It is important for universities, their students and staff, that there is a sustainable higher education (HE) funding system that provides opportunities, supports students and maintains the world-leading status of our universities. The government is committed to a sustainable funding model, which supports high value provision thereby powering opportunity and growth and meeting the skills needs of the country.
The government keeps the HE funding system under continuous review. The department will work with universities to support students and deliver for the economy. An announcement on student finance arrangements for the 2025/26 academic year will be made in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to open negotiations with the European Union about rejoining the Erasmus scheme.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
The department is working to reset the relationship with its European friends to strengthen ties and tackle barriers to trade. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, has said that we must do more to champion ties between the UK and the EU’s people and culture, for example through holidays, family ties, school and student exchanges, the arts and sport.
This is not about renegotiating or relitigating Brexit, but about looking forward and building a strong and constructive relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce delays in decisions on applications for funding under the Turing Scheme; and what assessment have they made of the impact of those delays on students from poorer backgrounds.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The Turing Scheme is a demand led, competitive programme with an annual application cycle. Decisions on allocations of funding each year depends on the number of applications that are successful, and how much funding successful organisations apply for. That means the department can only confirm how much funding each organisation can receive once all applications have been assessed.
In the past three academic years, successful applicant institutions have been notified of their funding allocation according to the department’s published timeline, before the start of the academic year and before the funding period for international placements commences. Once the grant agreement is in place, it is the responsibility of grant recipients to make timely requests for payments so that they can disburse funding to their participants at the point of need. All payments to grant recipients making valid payment requests have been disbursed to providers on time according to the agreed process.
The department has published information for 2024/25 applications to the Turing Scheme, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/turing-scheme-apply-for-funding-for-international-placements. Schools, colleges and universities, across the UK can now review the guidance and prepare their applications for funding ahead of the application window opening in February 2024.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the closure of the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure; what steps they plan to take to support (1) the redeployment of the College’s staff, and (2) the College’s students to complete their courses; and how the specialist premises and equipment will be used after its closure.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department is working with the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI) to safeguard the interests of learners and ensure they have the opportunity to complete or continue their studies. Dependent on their location, 24 learners on study programmes have transferred to either DN Colleges Group or to South & City College Birmingham, 25 higher education learners will complete their programme in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, and 38 apprentices will complete their programme with NCATI before 31 July 2023. With the support of their employers, a further 81 apprentices with an end date beyond 31 July 2023 have been transferred to other good quality providers.
The department is also working with the NCATI and the University of Birmingham to secure a sustainable educational use for the buildings that protects the public investment made.
In February 2022, the Department for Transport set up the industry-led skills and employment Taskforce, TEST. This is made up of leading transport industry figures who are best placed to reflect the sector’s concerns on skills and the transport labour market.
TEST’s overarching aims are to raise the profile of transport careers, promote access to training and employment opportunities, identify what specific future skills the transport sector needs, and identify innovative ways of encouraging people from underrepresented communities to work and stay in the industry.
The government is investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the Parliament to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that addresses skills gaps and boosts productivity. That includes approximately £300 million to establish 21 Institutes of Technology (IoTs) across the country. IoTs will provide access to industry standard facilities and focus on the technical training needs of employers, including the rail industry, and learners in their local areas.
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the closure of the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure, how they plan to ensure that sufficient engineers and other specialists required to maintain the UK’s railways and transport infrastructure will be trained in the future; and what financial support they are offering to support such training.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department is working with the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI) to safeguard the interests of learners and ensure they have the opportunity to complete or continue their studies. Dependent on their location, 24 learners on study programmes have transferred to either DN Colleges Group or to South & City College Birmingham, 25 higher education learners will complete their programme in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, and 38 apprentices will complete their programme with NCATI before 31 July 2023. With the support of their employers, a further 81 apprentices with an end date beyond 31 July 2023 have been transferred to other good quality providers.
The department is also working with the NCATI and the University of Birmingham to secure a sustainable educational use for the buildings that protects the public investment made.
In February 2022, the Department for Transport set up the industry-led skills and employment Taskforce, TEST. This is made up of leading transport industry figures who are best placed to reflect the sector’s concerns on skills and the transport labour market.
TEST’s overarching aims are to raise the profile of transport careers, promote access to training and employment opportunities, identify what specific future skills the transport sector needs, and identify innovative ways of encouraging people from underrepresented communities to work and stay in the industry.
The government is investing £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the Parliament to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that addresses skills gaps and boosts productivity. That includes approximately £300 million to establish 21 Institutes of Technology (IoTs) across the country. IoTs will provide access to industry standard facilities and focus on the technical training needs of employers, including the rail industry, and learners in their local areas.