Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support the introduction of more vocational education pathways for students in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As announced in the Spending Review, the department is making over £1 billion of additional investment per year in skills by 2028/29.
This will support and grow the wide range of technical routes and work-based training available for people of all ages, across the country including in Cambridgeshire. This includes:
We have also strengthened legislation to ensure all secondary pupils have multiple opportunities for meaningful encounters with providers of technical education and apprenticeships.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to ensure improved access to schooling for children with (a) visual and (b) hearing impairments in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision sits with local authorities. The department provides local authorities with capital funding to support them to meet this duty and has published allocations for £740 million in High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2025/26 financial year.
Of this £740 million, Lincolnshire Council has been allocated £10.3 million. This funding can be used to improve access to schooling for children and young people with a variety of SEND, including visual and hearing impairments. It is intended to adapt schools to be more accessible, to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs and to create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential contribution of school food procurement to the resilience of the (a) fruit and (b) vegetable supply chain.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The new national procurement policy statement sets out requirements for government contracts, favouring products certified to high environmental standards that we think British producers operating to high standards are well-placed to meet.
We are engaging with stakeholders on revising the school food standards to ensure the guidance supports our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history. The current standards state one or more portions of vegetables as an accompaniment and one or more portions of fruit must be provided every day, as well as at least three different fruits and three different vegetables each week. As with all aspects of the school food standards review, we will consider our approach to fruit and vegetable provision.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Young Futures Hubs she plans to create in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government has committed to the creation of a new Young Futures Programme, which will establish a network of Young Futures Hubs and Young Futures Prevention Partnerships. Young Futures Hubs will bring together services to improve access to opportunities and support for young people at community level, promoting positive outcomes and enabling them to thrive.
To roll out Young Futures Hubs, building on the success of existing infrastructure and provision, the government will establish a number of early adopter hubs, the locations of which will be determined by where they will have the most impact. These early adopters and work in local areas and will inform the longer-term development of the programme, including how quickly we move to a greater number of hubs and where they may be located.
The government will set out more details on timelines and locations in due course.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students from overseas have come from countries where there are travel restrictions for people with security clearance by country of origin.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not collect this information.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will introduce an equivalent to the statutory maternity allowance for self-employed adopters.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In the Department for Business and Trade’s ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’ report, the government committed to a review of the parental leave system to ensure that it best supports working families. This will include consideration of support to self-employed people, including self-employed adopters.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps is she taking to increase the number of apprenticeship starts in her Department.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
We remain committed to supporting the use of apprenticeships across all government departments to break down barriers to opportunity. This includes supporting the government's commitment to 2,000 digital apprenticeships through its TechTrack scheme by 2030 to improve digital skills and drive improvements and efficiency in public services.
Additionally, a new cross-government level 3 apprenticeship programme in Business Administration, the ‘Civil Service Career Launch Apprenticeship’, will see new apprentices kickstart their careers, across various departments, starting from January 2026.
The department also offers over 40 apprenticeship standards, from level 2 to level 7, as a development opportunity to all existing employees. Furthermore, most externally recruited entry grade vacancies are advertised as an apprenticeship. This ensures that we are also offering apprenticeships to external candidates, across most of our locations, as a route into the Civil Service.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she has taken to support grammar schools in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The national funding formula, and wider education policies, support all state-funded schools equally, including grammar schools.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much capital funding she plans to provide to schools in Lincolnshire in 2026-27.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has recently announced over £1 billion of new capital investment to support local authorities to create mainstream school places needed by September 2028. £640 million will be allocated in the financial year 2026/27, of which Lincolnshire local authority will receive £23.9 million.
Other capital budgets for 2026/27 will be decided as part of the ongoing multi-year spending review.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of school buildings in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department supports local authorities, academy trusts, and voluntary-aided school bodies responsible for the school estate by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.
We have increased funding to improve the condition of the estate to £2.1 billion for the 2025/26 financial year, up from £1.8 billion last year. Allocations are published on GOV.UK and are partly informed by consistent data on the condition of the estate collected by the department, reflecting the relative need of schools. This is in addition to our continued investment in the school rebuilding programme, including five schools in Lincolnshire, of which two are in the South Holland and The Deepings constituency.
From 2021 to 2026, the department’s Condition Data Collection 2 programme is visiting every government-funded school and college in England to collect data about the condition of their buildings. This data is providing an updated and comprehensive picture of the condition of the school estate in England to support our capital funding policy and programmes. Information on the condition of schools, as assessed by Condition Data Collection 1, can be found here: https://depositedpapers.parliament.uk/depositedpaper/2285521/files.