Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure equal access to education for children with additional learning needs.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
An inclusive education system for all children and young people requires a strong universal offer, built on high-quality adaptive teaching and early, effective support.
To support the development of a more inclusive mainstream system, we are investing £500 million per financial year over the next three years through an Inclusive Mainstream Fund (IMF) to support schools, colleges and early years settings with upfront funding to help them move towards becoming more inclusive by design.
We have published guidance for school leaders on how to develop an Inclusion Strategy and use their IMF allocations alongside core budgets to more effectively invest in inclusive approaches and activities that address barriers to learning and participation.
Beyond this investment, we have published guidance on Inclusion Bases, assistive technology, and other resources designed to help education and early years settings deliver high-quality inclusive learning environments and practice. Additionally, following changes to Ofsted inspections, settings are now held to account for their support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), through a new focus on inclusion. The renewed inspection framework sets out expectations for how leaders should ensure needs are identified and met, and how barriers to learning and engagement are removed.
The government is committed to supporting local areas to create high-quality places that are suitable to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND, to enable more children and young people to access the right support in their local area. This will enable them to learn alongside their peers and siblings, instead of travelling a long way to a specialist school.
The department is investing at least £3.7 billion in high needs capital funding between 2025/26 and 2029/30, to support local authorities to provide places for children and young people with SEND, or who require alternative provision, across early years settings, schools, and colleges.
This funding is expected to fund a transformative expansion of inclusion bases, as well as adaptations to improve the accessibility and inclusivity of mainstream settings. It can also be used to create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs.
Additionally, the department is investing around £1.8 billion over three years to develop a new Experts at Hand offer, giving mainstream settings access to specialist support from key health and education professionals.
Our overall package of reforms will ensure every child gets the right support at the right time.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that children from ethnic minority and working class backgrounds have equal access to education and future work opportunities.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department is committed to doing more to improve the life changes of all children, including children from ethnic minority and working class backgrounds.
Our approach is comprehensive: rebuilding early family support, developing a new model for targeting disadvantage funding so it better reflects need, strengthening teaching quality and ensuring high-quality curricula are embedded across the system.
We are also launching two place-based missions, Mission North East and Mission Coastal, to drive sustained improvement in areas where outcomes remain stubbornly low. These missions will bring together schools, families and local partners at place level to tackle entrenched disadvantage and raise attainment.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of, a) pupils recorded as young carers and, b) pupils not recorded as young carers were eligible for Free School Meals in the January school census returns for 2023 to 2025.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
The department holds data on young carers and pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM), which is published in the ‘Schools, pupils and characteristics’ publication. The most recent version was published in June 2025 and the next is scheduled for summer 2026.
Below is a table showing the proportion of pupils who are identified as young carers and known to be eligible for FSM, and the proportion of pupils who are not identified as young carers but are known to be eligible for FSM.
Year | Proportion of young carers known to be eligible for free schools meals (%) | Proportion of pupils not recorded as a young carer but known to be eligible for free school meals (%) |
2024/25 | 56.90 | 25.50 |
2023/24 | 56.80 | 24.40 |
2022/23 | 56.40 | 23.70 |
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will set out how the violence against women and girls strategy will address misogynistic behaviour in schools; and what guidance, resources and funding her Department will provide to support intervention.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Education is a significant part of the cross-government strategy to keep women and girls safe, focusing on prevention by instilling early the values and skills needed to protect young people, disrupt dangerous attitudes, and stop harmful behaviours escalating.
We have already overhauled the relationships, sex, and health education (RSHE) curriculum, with a new focus on developing skills for healthy relationships from the beginning of primary school, and equipping children with the tools to tackle harmful influences.
We have also committed £11 million to fund three pilot programmes to support teachers to implement the new RSHE curriculum, provide healthy relationships training, and advise on how to tackle harmful behaviours.
Departmental officials are also developing a series of resources on extreme misogyny with Connect Futures to support schools and colleges on whole school approaches, teaching materials, and assembly plans which will be available soon.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has considered the potential merits of removing the loan charge for students who withdraw from university in their first year due to health conditions and other mitigating circumstances.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Students may defer or withdraw from their studies for different reasons including due to health conditions and other mitigating circumstances. Interest will continue to accrue even if a student suspends or withdraws from their course, but current students on Plan 5 loans will only accrue Retail Price Index level interest, without the additional rates of Plan 2.
Interest rates do not impact monthly repayments made by student loan borrowers, which stay at a constant rate of 9% above an earnings threshold to protect lower earners. If a borrower’s income drops below the repayment threshold, or they are not earning, their repayments will stop.
Any outstanding loan will be cancelled if the borrower becomes disabled and permanently unfit for work, and debt is never passed on to family members or descendants.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has assessed the potential merits of waiving interest on student loans for people who withdraw from university due to health conditions or other mitigating circumstances.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Students may defer or withdraw from their studies for different reasons including due to health conditions and other mitigating circumstances. Interest will continue to accrue even if a student suspends or withdraws from their course, but current students on Plan 5 loans will only accrue Retail Price Index level interest, without the additional rates of Plan 2.
Interest rates do not impact monthly repayments made by student loan borrowers, which stay at a constant rate of 9% above an earnings threshold to protect lower earners. If a borrower’s income drops below the repayment threshold, or they are not earning, their repayments will stop.
Any outstanding loan will be cancelled if the borrower becomes disabled and permanently unfit for work, and debt is never passed on to family members or descendants.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 November 2025 to Question 88105, how many 16 to 19 year olds are enrolled on each of the 900 non-A level Level 3 qualifications referenced in the Department’s consultation document on Post-16 Level 3 and Below Pathways.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government’s vision for the 16-19 education system is to create a clear and coherent system with distinct pathways leading to further study, training or employment, including apprenticeships.
At level 3, this includes introducing V Levels, a new pathway alongside A levels and T Levels, as recommended in the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report. These reforms are currently under consultation.
Despite removing qualifications with sustained low or no enrolments ahead of this academic year, there remain 872 level 3 qualifications that are still available for 16–19-year-olds. Further analysis shows there were circa. 494,300 16-19 study programme enrolments in academic year 2022/23.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many 16 to 19 year olds are currently enrolled on each Level 3 qualification.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Official statistics showing Participation in education, training and employment age 16 to 18 are published annually, with the latest estimates being for end 2024, and accessible at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/participation-in-education-and-training-and-employment/2024.
The estimates relate to a snapshot of activities at the end of the calendar year, and are based on academic age, defined as ‘age at the start of the academic year’, that is age as at 31 August. The number of 16 to 18-year-olds participating on level 3 qualifications by their highest qualification aim at the end of 2024 can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/2e4d74ca-0086-4465-e324-08de1acd7617.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on (a) increasing funding for the Music and Dance Scheme and (b) committing to a multiple-year settlement.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government fully supports the arts and the development of a skills pipeline into the creative industries.
The department is providing £36.5 million for the Music and Dance Scheme this academic year.
Funding beyond the current academic year, including any introduction of multi-year funding agreements, will be considered in due course.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of withdrawing funding from applied general qualifications on the number of young people not in education, employment or training.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department introduced 140 newly reformed qualifications to be taught from the beginning of this academic year and just announced a further 27 newly reformed qualifications which it will fund from August 2026. This includes newly reformed alternative academic qualifications and new technical qualifications in health and social care and related areas such as science, that will sit alongside the T Level in health and related A levels. The department is withdrawing funding from unreformed qualifications in the same areas, so that students can benefit from the higher quality reformed alternatives.
T Levels are out-performing other qualifications. Where a student wishes to study a large qualification in health they should undertake the T Level.
We published an equalities impact assessment alongside the outcome of the review of qualifications reform. The review is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-level-3-qualifications-reform-equality-impact-assessment. The department expects the impact on the number of young people not in education, employment or training, to be mitigated by the availability of T Levels and other reformed qualifications.