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Written Question
Foster Care: North West
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number of foster care placements in (a) St Helens North constituency and (b) the North West.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department is investing over £36 million this parliament to deliver a fostering recruitment and retention programme, so that foster care is available for more children who need it. This will boost approvals of foster carers, as well as aiding the retention of foster carers already in place.

St Helens North is participating in this programme, working in a regional cluster group, ‘Foster4’, which is led by Warrington.

Greater financial support for foster carers will help improve the experiences of all children in care. For the second year running, the department is increasing the National Minimum Allowance (NMA) above the rate of inflation. For 2024/2025, the NMA will increase by 6.88%. This is on top of a 12.43% NMA increase in 2023/24.

In addition, the department estimates that changes to tax and benefit allowances will give the average foster carer an additional £450 per year as well as simplifying the process for self-assessment returns for most foster carers.

The department will also build on its investment since 2014 of over £8 million to advance the work of the Mockingbird programme, an innovative model of peer support for foster parents and the children in their care where children benefit from an extended family environment.


Written Question
Languages: GCE A-level
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of schools in (a) St Helens North constituency and (b) the North West she expects to offer A-Levels in modern foreign languages in the next five years.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The department does not produce projections of future trends of the number of students taking specific qualifications or future trends in the number of schools or colleges offering specific qualifications.

The department recognises the importance of the study of languages in Britain and is taking steps to increase the number of pupils studying languages at GCSE level and beyond. This is particularly important given that languages became non-mandatory at GCSE in 2004. The recently launched Language Hubs programme is comprised of 15 lead hub schools from across England, including a hub based in the North West. The lead hub schools will work with other schools in their areas to improve standards of language teaching, in line with recommendations of the Teaching Schools Council’s 2016 ‘Modern Foreign Languages Pedagogy Review’.

Managed by the National Consortium for Languages Education, the programme provides high-quality teacher Continuing Professional Development and includes improving transition from key stage 2 to key stage 3, increasing opportunities among disadvantaged pupils to study languages, and increasing the access to home, heritage, and community languages.


Written Question
Holiday Play Schemes
Monday 17th July 2023

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the participation of young people in (a) summer schemes and (b) clubs during the school holidays; and what funding she has provided to help such activities in St Helens.

Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

The department’s Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, backed by £200 million per year to 2025, provides heathy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families over the holidays. Local authorities have flexibility in how the programme can be delivered to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or additional needs who are in receipt of free school meals, ensuring it is tailored to meet the needs of those children and their families.

HAF is a voluntary programme for eligible children, and families can therefore choose whether their children attend. It is pleasing that the programme reached so many children last summer.

This year, the department has allocated £751,570 to the St Helens local authority, building on the £743,290 that was allocated to them for 2022/23.


Written Question
Pupils: Per Capita Costs
Thursday 25th May 2023

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average funding per pupil in mainstream schools was in (a) St Helens North constituency and (b) the North West in the 2022-23 academic year.

Answered by Nick Gibb

The average funding per pupil provided for mainstream schools in the North West through the Dedicated Schools Grant and the Schools Supplementary Grant (SSG) in the 2022/23 financial year was £5,524.

Per pupil funding excludes growth funding.

Through the schools National Funding Formula (NFF), the Department calculates notional funding allocations for each mainstream school. These are then aggregated for each Local Authority. Regional average per pupil figures are based on the actual funding schools receive, in total, from these aggregated allocations.

Each Local Authority then determines individual schools’ final funding allocations through their own local formula. The Department does not calculate actual constituency level per pupil averages.

The average notional funding per pupil for mainstream schools in the St Helens North constituency through the schools NFF in 2022/23 was £5,289. On top of this funding, all schools in St Helens North received additional funding through the SSG in 2022/23, worth an average additional £156 per pupil.

Maintained schools are funded on a financial year basis, and academies are funded on an academic year basis.


Written Question
Childcare: St Helens
Tuesday 2nd May 2023

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will bring forward plans to provide immediate financial support to help families in St Helens meet childcare costs.

Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

In the Spring Budget 2023, my right hon. Friend, Chancellor of the Exchequer announced transformative reforms to childcare.

By 2027/28, the government expects to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping families with pre-school children with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England. Full details are accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-unveils-a-budget-for-growth.

Our reforms include:

  • Providing over £4.1 billion by 2027/28 to fund 30 hours of free childcare for children over the age of nine months.
  • Investing £204 million from this September, rising to £288 million next year, to uplift the rates for existing entitlements.
  • Increasing the supply of wraparound care through £289 million start-up funding.
  • Attracting more people to childminding through an up to £7.2 million start-up grant fund.
  • Giving providers more flexibility by changing staff to child ratios to 1:5 for two-year-olds in England.
  • Launching a consultation on further measures to support reform of the childcare market.

This is a massive expansion in the offer and will take some time to implement and rollout. We want to ensure that taxpayers’ money is used efficiently, and that the new offer is delivered in the best way.

The department is working closely with the sector on the implementation of these reforms, to identify what needs to be in place to support this significant expansion in childcare provision. We will set out further details in due course.

​The department’s Childcare Choices communications campaign aims to ensure parents, including families in St Helens, know about the government-funded support they are eligible for. ​The government has doubled the entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours and introduced 15 free hours a week for disadvantaged two-year-olds. In addition, working parents on Universal Credit may be eligible for help with up to 85% of their childcare costs every month. More information is available at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

Details on the full range of support available to parents can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs.


Written Question
Teachers: Vacancies
Wednesday 23rd November 2022

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) teacher and (b) teaching assistant positions are vacant in (i) St Helens, (ii) Merseyside and (iii) England.

Answered by Nick Gibb

Information on the state funded school workforce in England, including the number and rate of teacher vacancies by school each November, is published in the annual ‘School Workforce in England’ national statistics release, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england. Data for November 2022 will be published in summer 2023.

In November 2021, there were three teacher vacancies in St Helens, 29 in Merseyside and 1,564 in England.

Information on teaching assistant vacancies is not collected centrally.


Written Question
Free School Meals: Merseyside
Wednesday 9th November 2022

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many pupils in (a) St Helens and (b) Merseyside are eligible for free school meals; and what the national average is.

Answered by Nick Gibb

The number of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) in each local authority in Merseyside, and the national total, are published at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/3786b748-23e3-4fad-9e99-08dabce49219.

Figures published in June 2022 show that, in total, there were 63,273 pupils in Merseyside eligible for FSM, which equates to 29.2% of all pupils.

In St Helens, one of the five local authorities within Merseyside, 6,877 pupils were eligible for FSM, which equates to 25.2%.

Across England 22.5% of pupils were eligible for FSM.


Written Question
Students: Cost of Living
Thursday 22nd September 2022

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on alleviating the rising cost of living pressures facing higher education students.

Answered by Andrea Jenkyns

The department recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and impacted students. Many higher education providers have hardship funds that students can apply to for assistance.

The Energy Price Guarantee announced on 8 September 2022 will save the average household at least £1,000 a year based on current energy prices from October, in addition to the £400 energy bills discount for all households. Students who buy their energy from a domestic supplier are eligible for the energy bills discount.

We have provided guidance to the Office for Students (OfS) regarding funding for the 2022/23 financial year to support disadvantaged students and those who need additional help. Universities will continue to be able to support students through their own hardship funds and the student premium, for which up to £261 million is available for academic year 2022/23.

The department has also worked closely with the OfS to clarify that English providers can draw upon this funding now, to provide hardship funds and support disadvantaged students impacted by cost-of-living pressures.

Maximum grants and loans for living costs have also been increased by 2.3% this academic year, 2022/23. Students who have been awarded a loan for living costs for the 2022/23 academic year that is lower than the maximum, and whose household income for the tax year 2022-23 has dropped by at least 15% compared to the income provided for their original assessment, can apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.

In addition, maximum tuition fees, and the subsidised loans available from the department to pay for them, remain at £9,250 for the 2022/23 academic year for standard full-time courses. We are also freezing maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven years. As well as reducing debt levels for students, the continued fee freeze will help to ensure that the higher education system remains sustainable while also promoting greater efficiency at providers.

As part of a package of support for rising energy bills, the government is giving a council tax rebate payment of £150 to households that were living in a property in council tax bands A to D as their main home on 1 April 2022. This includes full-time students that do not live in student halls or in property that is not considered a house in multiple occupation for council tax purposes.


Written Question
Special Educational Needs: Teachers
Thursday 24th March 2022

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve the (a) recruitment, (b) development and (c) retention of specialist staff working in the Special Educational Needs and Disability sector; and if he will make a statement.

Answered by Will Quince

The department remains committed to increasing teacher starting salaries to £30,000 to ensure teaching remains an attractive graduate option. Our reformed initial teacher training (ITT) Core Content Framework (CCF) and the new Early Career Framework (ECF), both developed with sector experts, will equip teachers with a clear understanding of the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

All teachers are teachers of SEND. ITT courses must be designed so that trainee teachers can demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level which includes the requirement that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND. It is a legal requirement for qualified teachers of classes of pupils with sensory impairments to hold the relevant mandatory qualification. The department’s aim is to ensure a steady supply of teachers for children with visual, hearing, and multi-sensory impairment, in both specialist and mainstream settings.

Teacher quality is the most important in-school determinant of pupil outcomes. Once teachers qualify and are employed in schools, headteachers use their professional judgement to identify any further training, including specific specialisms, for individual staff that is relevant to them, the school, and its pupils. Beyond the first few years of teaching, our priority is to help all teachers and school leaders to continuously develop their expertise throughout their careers so every child in every classroom in every school gets the best start in life.

Teacher retention is key to ensuring effective teacher supply and quality, and we are taking action to support teachers to stay in the profession and thrive. The department has published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and support schools to introduce flexible working practices.


Written Question
Special Educational Needs: North West
Thursday 24th March 2022

Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside and (c) the North West currently not able to take up a college place due to shortages of specialist staff working in the SEND sector.

Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

Local authorities are best placed to understand the number of young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in their area and the capacity of their local further education (FE) provision to accommodate these needs.

The department does not currently collect data centrally on available capacity in high needs provision. However, we are continuing to work with local authorities to better understand future demand for SEND provision, including in FE settings, as we consider how we can best support the sector going forward.

It is essential that all learners in the FE sector, including those with complex special needs, experience the highest quality teaching. The department recognises that teacher recruitment and retention can be challenging for providers. To support this, the government is investing £50 million in programmes designed to improve the supply and quality of FE teachers in the current financial year.

In January 2022, we launched a recruitment campaign to raise awareness of the opportunities to teach in FE with a wider audience. For those choosing to specialise in SEND teaching in the FE sector, the department has also announced that we will offer tax-free training bursaries worth £15,000 each, for a further academic year of 2022/23. This will help to boost the supply of teachers with specialist training to support learners with SEND in the FE sector.

The department is also investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND, or who require alternative provision. This funding represents a transformational investment in new high needs provision. It will help deliver tens of thousands of new high needs places, including in post-16 and FE settings.