Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Further education reclassification: government response, published on 29 November 2022, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of new private sector borrowing rules on further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Following the decision by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to reclassify colleges to the public sector, the department is supporting colleges to meet the requirements of managing public money, while retaining many of their key areas of autonomy and flexibility.
Managing public money means public sector organisations may only borrow from private sector sources if the transaction delivers value for money for HM Treasury. The department has put in place a consents process for any new commercial borrowing that colleges would like to undertake. Department officials are working through the requests for January in priority order and will respond to colleges as quickly as possible.
Where the department has been unable to consent to commercial borrowing, it will consider if there is any scope for finding alternative ways to support projects that colleges were intending, pre-reclassification, to self-fund through commercial borrowing.
In response to the ONS decision on reclassification, the department has designed a package of measures to enable colleges to deliver on the priorities in the Skills for Jobs White Paper, and to continue to invest in their estates. This includes an additional £150 million allocation of capital grant funding for condition improvement for 2023/24. These allocations are available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fe-capital-funding#fe-reclassification-capital-allocation. Allocations will be paid in April 2023.
The department is bringing forward £300 million of funding by March 2023 to smooth the payment profile and help colleges with their cashflow. This was communicated to the sector on 18 January.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the further education reclassification: government response, published 29 November 2022, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing further education colleges to recover VAT.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government keeps VAT policies under review. Any proposals to changes in the tax system would need to be considered in the context of broader public finances.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of reallocating potential underspend from the 16-18 education budget to the adult education budget for further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department manages its budget within the Departmental Expenditure Limit to best achieve government objectives, including re-purposing underspends on some budgets to help with pressures and priorities elsewhere.
The department recognises the importance of adult education. Through a range of programmes, we are targeting provision at adults to equip them with the skills employers look for, and the skills that will lead to better jobs, better wellbeing, and better options for the future.
This includes through the Adult Education Budget, apprenticeships, Skills Bootcamps, and Free Courses for Jobs.
The Adult Education Budget, worth £1.34 billion this year, funds skills provision for adults to help them gain the skills that they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), worth over £2.6 billion, will help to level up and create opportunity across the UK. The first skills priority for UKSPF will be to help adults improve their maths skills via the Multiply programme, worth up to £559 million.
The department is also investing £1.6 billion through the National Skills Fund across the 2022 to 2025 financial years, including an investment of up to £550 million to significantly expand Skills Bootcamps, and investment to expand the eligibility for delivery of the Free Courses for Jobs offer, which is now open to more adults.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to help support recruitment of teachers in further education colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department has launched the national Further Education (FE) Recruitment Campaign and Teach in FE Digital Service, a recruitment campaign that aims to deliver simple, accessible information and comprehensive support for prospective teachers. The campaign is expected to reach millions of prospective FE teaching staff, and target those with valuable experience and skills in industry to train the next generation of technical experts.
The department is also increasing the level of overall investment in the FE sector, which will help colleges to recruit, retain, and develop the staff they need. The 2021 Spending Review made available an extra £1.6 billion for 16-to-19 education in 2024/25 financial year compared with 2021/22. In the 2023/24 financial year, the department will be using £125 million of available funding to invest an extra £85 million to support all institutions’ costs by increasing the national funding rate by 2.2% from £4,542 in 2022/23 to £4,642, along with investing £40 million in subject specific funding, including through uplifting 16-to-19 programme costs weights for engineering, construction and digital sector subject areas. This will support additional costs of recruiting and retaining teachers in this high value, vocational provision.
The department is providing bursaries worth up to £26,000 tax-free per individual, to support FE teacher training in priority subject areas for 2022/23.
A teacher training apprenticeship for those planning to work in the FE sector has recently been updated and strengthened, and employers can use levy funding of up to £7,000 per apprentice to put their new teachers through a high quality work-based training programme.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many contracts were awarded to Surgo Construction relating to the (a) construction, (b) repair and (c) maintenance of schools in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There have been no contracts awarded by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to Surgo Construction in the last five years, comprising calendar years 2018 to 2022.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will extend the 30 hours free childcare provision to student (a) midwives, (b) nurses and (c) paramedics.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The government is not currently planning to extend 30 hours free childcare. The department recognises the value of parents continuing in education and provides a range of support for students in further or higher education to support them with childcare.
Support available to students includes the Childcare Grant and Parents’ Learning Allowance. These schemes are available for full-time students with dependent children, including student nurses, midwives and paramedics.
For additional financial support to help with childcare costs, since September 2020, all eligible nursing, midwifery, paramedic and other allied health profession students have received a non-repayable training grant of a minimum of £5,000 per academic year. Eligible students with child dependants can also access a further £2,000 per academic year.
Additionally, all parents are eligible for the universal 15 hours of free early education which is available to all three and four-year olds, regardless of family circumstances.
Working parents of three and four-year-olds may also be eligible for an additional 15 hours of free childcare if they earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at national minimum/living wage and under £100,000 per year. Students who participate in paid work in addition to their studies and meet the income requirements will be eligible for the additional hours.
Parents who meet these income criteria may also be able to receive support from Tax-Free Childcare, which can be worth up to £2,000 per year for children aged 0-11, or up to £4,000 per year for disabled children aged 0-16.
Further information on the childcare offers available to parents can be accessed at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
The department remains committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare, and we continue to look at ways to make childcare more affordable and to encourage families to use government-funded support they are entitled to.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of childcare provision in Easington constituency.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The department continues to monitor the sufficiency of childcare nationally. The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. Ofsted data currently shows that the number of places offered by providers on the Early Years Register has remained broadly stable at 1.3 million places since August 2015.
Officials from the department also discuss sufficiency of provision in regular conversations with local authorities. Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring sufficient childcare places in their area. The department has not been made aware by any local authority of any current sufficiency problem. Durham Council, which holds the statutory duty to secure sufficient childcare in Easington, is not reporting that these closures will affect their ability to fulfil this duty.
According to findings from the 2021 childcare and early years providers survey, 7 in 10 group-based providers reported having spare places in their full day provision and 49% of childminders reported having spare capacity on average across the week.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will undertake a review of the operating resilience of early years childcare providers in Easington constituency; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
According to Ofsted records, as of 31 March 2022, 0 providers on non-domestic premises and 10 childminders had left the Early Years Register in Easington between March 2021 and March 2022. Over the same period, 1 provider on non-domestic premises and 1 childminder joined the Early Years Register in Easington.
Ofsted’s publication provides data on both joiners and leavers to the register, but not at a parliamentary constituency level, so this analysis is based on the differences in the Early Years register between March 2021 and March 2022.
The department has no plans to make a statement on the operating resilience of early years childcare providers in Easington constituency.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an estimate of the number of (a) nurseries and (b) other early years childcare settings which have closed in Easington constituency since March 2021.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
According to Ofsted records, as of 31 March 2022, 0 providers on non-domestic premises and 10 childminders had left the Early Years Register in Easington between March 2021 and March 2022. Over the same period, 1 provider on non-domestic premises and 1 childminder joined the Early Years Register in Easington.
Ofsted’s publication provides data on both joiners and leavers to the register, but not at a parliamentary constituency level, so this analysis is based on the differences in the Early Years register between March 2021 and March 2022.
The department has no plans to make a statement on the operating resilience of early years childcare providers in Easington constituency.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the level of affordability of childcare provision in Easington constituency.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The department continues to look at ways to make childcare more affordable and to encourage families to use government-funded support they are entitled to.
The department collects data on the main characteristics of childcare and early years provision in England and fees data can be broken down to local authority level.
Easington constituency falls within Durham County Council, where the latest data shows the average hourly fee for childcare to be £5.00 for two-year-old children, and £4.75 for three and four-year-old children.