Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to pages 37 of her Department's statutory guidance entitled Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education, updated on 15 July 2025, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including first response for drug misuse as part of mandatory training for secondary school pupils.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory RSHE guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries, and pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example specifically how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and how to use them.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid, including teaching additional topical content and which resources to use. Many schools incorporate additional content, which can include how pupils should deal with a first response emergency situation, including how to respond to knife wounds, drug misuse and road traffic injury.
The department’s defibrillator programme completed in 2023 and was the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date and provided over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 schools, ensuring that all state-funded schools in England have access to a device.
Defibrillators are designed so they can be used by anyone with no prior training. As part of the department’s roll out, we provided awareness videos to schools showing how simple defibrillators can be to use, and asked schools to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to pages 37 to 38 of her Department's statutory guidance entitled Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education, updated on 15 July 2025, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including first response for knife wounds as part of mandatory training for secondary school pupils.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory RSHE guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries, and pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example specifically how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and how to use them.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid, including teaching additional topical content and which resources to use. Many schools incorporate additional content, which can include how pupils should deal with a first response emergency situation, including how to respond to knife wounds, drug misuse and road traffic injury.
The department’s defibrillator programme completed in 2023 and was the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date and provided over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 schools, ensuring that all state-funded schools in England have access to a device.
Defibrillators are designed so they can be used by anyone with no prior training. As part of the department’s roll out, we provided awareness videos to schools showing how simple defibrillators can be to use, and asked schools to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to page 37 of her Department's statutory guidance entitled Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education, updated on 15 July 2025, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including first response for road traffic accidents as part of mandatory training for secondary school pupils.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory RSHE guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries, and pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example specifically how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and how to use them.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid, including teaching additional topical content and which resources to use. Many schools incorporate additional content, which can include how pupils should deal with a first response emergency situation, including how to respond to knife wounds, drug misuse and road traffic injury.
The department’s defibrillator programme completed in 2023 and was the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date and provided over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 schools, ensuring that all state-funded schools in England have access to a device.
Defibrillators are designed so they can be used by anyone with no prior training. As part of the department’s roll out, we provided awareness videos to schools showing how simple defibrillators can be to use, and asked schools to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many local authority group-based providers of Ofsted registered Early Years Foundation Stage (a) education and (b) care provided childcare places in each year since 2010.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ofsted Early Years Register collects data on the number of providers of childcare on domestic premises, childcare on non-domestic premises, childminders, and home childcare. It does not identify local authority run provision and it is not broken down by age.
Ofsted’s registered early years and childcare statistics contains granular data about providers registered with Ofsted, their places and inspection outcomes (where appropriate) and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-and-childcare-statistics.
Ofsted have also recently published management information aggregating registered childcare providers and inspections and their outcomes. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/childcare-providers-and-inspections-management-information.
The department publishes an annual survey of childcare and early years providers. This includes school-based provision that is not required to register with Ofsted. This survey includes a category for “school, college, local authorities and 'other unclassified'” group-based providers, which includes those run by local authorities. The survey covers three broad groups of providers: group-based providers, school-based providers and childminders.
Between 2018 and 2023 in England the survey reported:
| 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Other group-based providers | 700 | 700 | 600 | 1,100 | 1,000 |
Total providers | 66,600 | 66,000 | 62,000 | 59,400 | 56,300 |
This data is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-childcare-and-early-years.
It is not possible to break the survey data down further and identify numbers of, for example, local authority run group-based providers or school run group-based providers within the other group-based providers group. The reports do not include the number of places per provider.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of childcare places for children aged between zero and two years were provided by local authority group-based providers of Ofsted-registered early years foundation stage education and care in each year since 2010.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ofsted Early Years Register collects data on the number of providers of childcare on domestic premises, childcare on non-domestic premises, childminders, and home childcare. It does not identify local authority run provision and it is not broken down by age.
Ofsted’s registered early years and childcare statistics contains granular data about providers registered with Ofsted, their places and inspection outcomes (where appropriate) and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-and-childcare-statistics.
Ofsted have also recently published management information aggregating registered childcare providers and inspections and their outcomes. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/childcare-providers-and-inspections-management-information.
The department publishes an annual survey of childcare and early years providers. This includes school-based provision that is not required to register with Ofsted. This survey includes a category for “school, college, local authorities and 'other unclassified'” group-based providers, which includes those run by local authorities. The survey covers three broad groups of providers: group-based providers, school-based providers and childminders.
Between 2018 and 2023 in England the survey reported:
| 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Other group-based providers | 700 | 700 | 600 | 1,100 | 1,000 |
Total providers | 66,600 | 66,000 | 62,000 | 59,400 | 56,300 |
This data is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-childcare-and-early-years.
It is not possible to break the survey data down further and identify numbers of, for example, local authority run group-based providers or school run group-based providers within the other group-based providers group. The reports do not include the number of places per provider.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many childcare places were provided by local authority group-based providers of Ofsted registered Early Years Foundation Stage (a) education and (b) care in each year since 2010.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ofsted Early Years Register collects data on the number of providers of childcare on domestic premises, childcare on non-domestic premises, childminders, and home childcare. It does not identify local authority run provision and it is not broken down by age.
Ofsted’s registered early years and childcare statistics contains granular data about providers registered with Ofsted, their places and inspection outcomes (where appropriate) and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-and-childcare-statistics.
Ofsted have also recently published management information aggregating registered childcare providers and inspections and their outcomes. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/childcare-providers-and-inspections-management-information.
The department publishes an annual survey of childcare and early years providers. This includes school-based provision that is not required to register with Ofsted. This survey includes a category for “school, college, local authorities and 'other unclassified'” group-based providers, which includes those run by local authorities. The survey covers three broad groups of providers: group-based providers, school-based providers and childminders.
Between 2018 and 2023 in England the survey reported:
| 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Other group-based providers | 700 | 700 | 600 | 1,100 | 1,000 |
Total providers | 66,600 | 66,000 | 62,000 | 59,400 | 56,300 |
This data is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-childcare-and-early-years.
It is not possible to break the survey data down further and identify numbers of, for example, local authority run group-based providers or school run group-based providers within the other group-based providers group. The reports do not include the number of places per provider.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she had discussions with (a) teachers' trade unions and (b) LGBTQ+ organisations on her Department's draft guidance on Gender questioning children: draft schools and colleges guidance, published on 19 December 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department is keen to consider the full range of views from all stakeholders and the public consultation on the draft guidance which is open until 12 March 2024 to allow all organisations and individuals to comment.
During this 12-week consultation period, the department plans to engage with a range of interested organisations, including organisations that represent LGBT groups.
In forming the guidance the department and Ministers engaged with experts, including Dr Hilary Cass, school leaders and Parliamentarians, including those who represent LGBT groups.
Departmental officials spoke to a range of groups and organisations to help inform the guidance.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an estimate of the proportion of pupils identifying as LGBTQ+ who have been bullied in the last 12 months.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department has not made a specific assessment of the potential impact of schools on the mental health of LGBTQ+ young people, but the department is aware that bullying in school can have a profound effect on a child’s mental health and collect regular information.
To support schools, the department is providing over £3 million of funding, between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2024, to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. This includes projects targeting bullying of particular groups, such as those who are victims of hate related bullying and homophobic, bi-phobic and transphobic based bullying.
The department is taking actions to tackle bullying as part of the commitment to ensuring schools are safe, supportive, inclusive environments where all pupils feel they belong. The department’s programme of senior mental health lead training is further supporting schools to promote the mental health and wellbeing of all pupils through effective whole-school approaches. This approach should include creating an environment that promotes respect and values diversity, having robust processes for identifying individuals or groups of pupils in need of further support, and ensuring all staff can recognise and understand how to respond to mental health concerns. The department has committed to offer all schools and colleges funding to train a senior mental health lead by 2025. Over 14,000 settings, including more than 7 in 10 state secondary schools, have taken up the offer so far.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of schools on the mental health of young people identifying as LGBTQ+.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department has not made a specific assessment of the potential impact of schools on the mental health of LGBTQ+ young people, but the department is aware that bullying in school can have a profound effect on a child’s mental health and collect regular information.
To support schools, the department is providing over £3 million of funding, between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2024, to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. This includes projects targeting bullying of particular groups, such as those who are victims of hate related bullying and homophobic, bi-phobic and transphobic based bullying.
The department is taking actions to tackle bullying as part of the commitment to ensuring schools are safe, supportive, inclusive environments where all pupils feel they belong. The department’s programme of senior mental health lead training is further supporting schools to promote the mental health and wellbeing of all pupils through effective whole-school approaches. This approach should include creating an environment that promotes respect and values diversity, having robust processes for identifying individuals or groups of pupils in need of further support, and ensuring all staff can recognise and understand how to respond to mental health concerns. The department has committed to offer all schools and colleges funding to train a senior mental health lead by 2025. Over 14,000 settings, including more than 7 in 10 state secondary schools, have taken up the offer so far.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment their Department has made of the potential effect of the merger between Three and Vodafone on their Department's contracts with Vodafone.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As an open economy, the Government welcomes and encourages investment where it supports the Prime Minister’s goal of boosting UK growth and jobs, meets the stringent legal and regulatory requirements, and does not compromise our national security. The Government has robust powers under the National Security and Investment Act 2021, which it introduced, to block or impose remedies on transactions that pose a national security risk.
The Department cannot comment on specific acquisitions nor the applicability of the National Security and Investment regime.
It is the responsibility of Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to assess the effect on consumers and competition in the market, with input from sectoral regulators.
The Investment Security Unit works closely with the CMA on cases that are being considered for both national security and competition reasons. A memorandum of understanding has been agreed between the Investment Security Unit and the CMA to assist joint working. This memorandum of understanding is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/operation-of-the-national-security-and-investment-act-2021-memorandum-of-understanding/mou-between-beis-and-the-cma-on-the-operation-of-the-national-security-and-investment-act-2021.