Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Sutton Trust’s Closing the Attainment Gap report, published on 22 February 2024, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of expanding free school meal eligibility to all children on Universal Credit.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The government is driving an agenda of change to break down the barriers to opportunity and to reduce child poverty, working across local and national government.

Child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low income family. That is why the government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, tackling the root causes, and giving every child the best start at life. To support this, a new Ministerial taskforce has been set up to develop a Child Poverty Strategy, which will be published in the spring.

The department is also committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity so that all children have the freedom to achieve and thrive in education. To support this aim, the government is committed to introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary school to set children up for the day and ensure they are ready to learn, while supporting parents and carers to work.

Disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools, as well as 16 to 18-year-old students in further education (FE), are entitled to receive free meals on the basis of low income. 2.1 million disadvantaged pupils are registered to receive free school meals (FSM) and a further 90,000 are registered to receive FE free meals. In addition, all children in reception, year 1 and year 2 in England's state-funded schools are entitled to Universal Infant Free School Meals, which benefits around 1.3 million pupils.

As with all government programmes, we will keep our approach to FSM under review.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to her Department's press release of 17 November 2024 entitled £1 billion government funding boost for bus services across England to help end postcode lottery, what proportion of the additional funding will be allocated to improving the experience of disabled passengers.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The government wants everyone to have access to public transport and is committed to improving services so they are more inclusive and enable disabled people to travel safely, confidently and with dignity.

At the Budget we confirmed over £1 billion in funding to improve services, protect vital routes and keep fares down. On 17 November, we confirmed how we are distributing £955 million that funding, with £712 million for local councils to deliver bus service improvement plans (BSIP) and better meet local needs, and a further £243 million for bus operators, including funding a long-standing grant to drive down fares and drive up services.

Funding allocated to local authorities to deliver BSIPs can be used in whichever way they wish to improve services for all passengers, including disabled passengers. The Department for Transport's guidance to local authorities on developing their BSIPs makes clear that these must consider accessibility, inclusiveness, personal safety and security when deciding how to improve the experience for passengers.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of vision zero approaches to road safety in other countries.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The safety of our roads is a priority and we are currently developing a road safety strategy – the first in over a decade.

The DfT Chief Scientific Adviser is meeting with international experts to understand the effectiveness of a range of interventions and their implications for road safety in this country.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Sutton Trust’s Inequality in early years education report, published on 24 January 2024, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of establishing a national strategy for the reinvigoration of children’s centres.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The government’s Opportunity Mission aims to give all children the best start in life, breaking the link between young people’s background and future success.

This means supporting strong family relationships and stable home environments, providing access to family services that provide the right help at the right time, alongside quality early education.

Family hubs do great work to help families access vital services. The Autumn Budget 2024 included an announcement of £69 million to continue delivery of the existing network of family hubs for 2025/26. More than 400 family hubs opened under the existing programme, targeted at the most disadvantaged areas.

The department’s long term intention is to reform the early years system and improve family services to provide the foundation of opportunity and improved life chances for children.

The department is considering how best to achieve these aims under the terms of the subsequent muti-year spending review.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report entitled Social Selection on the Map, published by the Sutton Trust on 3 September 2024, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of (a) reviewing existing admissions code policies and (b) making Pupil Premium eligibility a required part of schools’ oversubscription criteria.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

The department has no current plans to make eligibility for the pupil premium a mandatory oversubscription criteria in school admission arrangements.

However, through the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, the department is planning to legislate on requiring all schools to cooperate with the local authority on school admissions, special educational needs and disabilities inclusion and place planning, by giving local authorities greater powers to help them deliver their functions on school admissions and ensure admissions decisions account for the needs of communities.

We expect this will require taking forward changes to the School Admissions Code. As part of this, the department will also consider any wider changes necessary to ensure fair access to school for all. Any changes to the Code will require a statutory process, including a full public consultation and parliamentary approval.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the parental income thresholds used to determine the level of support for maintenance loans.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department needs to ensure that the student funding system is financially sustainable. The department recognises the impact that the cost-of-living crisis has had on students, which is why the highest levels of support are targeted at students with household incomes of £25,000 or less.

For the 2025/26 academic year, the department will be increasing loans for living costs by 3.1%, which is in line with the forecast rate of inflation based on the RPI All Items Excl Mortgage Interest (RPIX) inflation measure. Vulnerable groups of students eligible for benefits, such as lone parents and some disabled students, qualify for higher rates of loans for living costs. This ensures that most support is targeted at students from the lowest income families, while keeping the student finance system financially sustainable.

There is much more to do to expand access and improve outcomes for disadvantaged students. That is why the department has announced that it expects the higher education sector to do more to support students by working with the government and the Office for Students and by making the most of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement. The department will be setting out longer term plans for the sector next year.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the pupil premium to post-16 institutions.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department believes further education has a crucial part to play in ensuring the UK has the skills needed for sustainable economic growth. A range of options and priorities will be considered to secure a sustainable and adequate funding of post-16 institutions and learners as part of the next stage of the spending review, which is expected to conclude in late spring 2025.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Department is taking to support (a) parents and (b) carers facing domestic (i) abuse and (ii) violence from (A) children and (B) wards.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in our country is intolerable and this Government will treat it as the national emergency that it is. Tackling VAWG is a top priority and our mission is to halve VAWG within a decade. To achieve this ambitious aim, it is essential that we tackle domestic abuse and all forms of interpersonal abuse.

This Government’s target to halve VAWG within the next decade will only succeed if we continue to ensure children and young people are also at the heart of prevention and intervention programmes and policies. Progressing work around child to parent abuse is an important part of this and we will consider the responses to the consultation on the definition of child to parent abuse as part of our approach to addressing this issue.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that apprenticeship opportunities are made more widely available for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity. As part of this, we want to ensure that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can undertake apprenticeships.

The department continues to pay additional funding to employers and training providers to support them to take on young apprentices, apprentices with learning difficulties and disabilities, and care leavers.

The department has begun work to develop new foundation apprenticeships, providing high quality entry pathways for young people. We will engage with relevant stakeholders to inform our thinking to maximise the positive impact on young people, including those in disadvantaged areas. More detail on foundation apprenticeships will be set out in due course.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the practice of gazumping; and whether she has made an assessment of the effectiveness of voluntary reservation agreements in residential sales.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The government recognise that the home buying and selling process in England and Wales is inefficient and costly for consumers and professionals. We continue to review evidence from other jurisdictions, including on reservation agreements, as we consider next steps.