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 uses numerical reasoning tests as part of the recruitment process for its graduate recruitment scheme.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
The department does not have a graduate recruitment scheme and instead places bids to provide placements for the Civil Service Fast Stream graduate recruitment scheme, which is managed centrally by the Cabinet Office.
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 her department is taking to address the recruitment and retention of teachers in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
In February, the department published our delivery plan, which sets how we will recruit 6,500 secondary, special school and further education teachers over the course of this Parliament.
We are already seeing positive signs that our investment is delivering. We have now achieved 71.6% of the 6,500 additional teachers target, and the latest school workforce census reported the lowest leaver rate (8.5%) in any year outside the pandemic.
We are offering a targeted retention incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools. Within South Holland and the Deepings there are seven eligible schools and 56 in the Lincolnshire local authority in the 2025/26 academic year.
The department has established a network of teaching school hubs across the country, which provide approved high-quality professional development to teachers at all stages of their careers. L.E.A.D. Teaching School Hub supports teacher training and development across South Holland and the Deepings.
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 political appointees have been made by her department since July 2024.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
We have taken ‘political appointees’ to mean special advisers. A list of special advisers by department is published each year in the Annual Report on Special Advisers which is laid in parliament. The Annual Report on Special Advisers 2026 will be published 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, what information her Department holds on the number of people who have outstanding Plan 2 student loans in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As of 21 June 2026, there were 4,900 (to the nearest hundred) Plan 2 student loan borrowers with a positive balance registered with the Student Loans Company (SLC) whose recorded postcodes fall within the South Holland and The Deepings constituency. This may include borrowers who were resident in the constituency at the point of application (including at parental addresses) and who have not subsequently updated their address with the SLC.
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 her Department has made of the potential impact of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement on (a) mature student enrolment numbers and (b) local upskilling opportunities in (i) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (ii) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will replace and transform the existing student finance system for higher education at levels 4 to 6. It will support this ambition by making modular provision eligible for funding for the first time.
An equality analysis on the LLE was published in 2023 and is available on GOV.UK.
A subsequent equality analysis was published alongside the Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026 that were laid before the House on 18 May 2026.
We expect the LLE to have a positive impact on mature learners and for them to benefit from the ability to use their entitlement student finance more flexibly, including in the South Holland and the Deepings constituency, and Lincolnshire.
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 pupils in Lincolnshire in learning to swim.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Swimming is a vital life skill. This is why swimming is a curriculum entitlement at primary school. Funded through core school budgets, schools must provide swimming lessons in either key stage 1 or 2.
The department has confirmed £1 billion funding for PE and school sport over three years, building on the £67 billion core funding provided this year.
Increasing access and improving attainment in swimming will be key priorities for the new PE and School Sport Partnerships network. It will bring together schools, local clubs, and national governing bodies of sport to identify and address barriers to participation, targeting funding and support to where they are needed most.
The network will develop more consistent high-quality support, including swimming and water safety training, access to specialist coaching, links to local swimming clubs and greater access to competitions and national programmes.
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 support her Department is providing for post-16 education providers in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is supporting providers across the country, including in South Holland and the Deepings and across Lincolnshire, with over £18 billion per year of programme funding in post-16 education and skills, delivering record investment this Parliament.
This includes nearly £800 million extra into 16 to 19 education in 2026/27, compared to original plans, enabling providers to grow high quality pathways for thousands more learners.
Through the £1.4 billion Adult Skills Fund for providers/areas, we are continuing to invest in high-quality training for adults.
The department oversees the further education (FE) sector through its regulatory and stewardship role, setting funding and quality expectations and monitoring performance via data, inspections and structured engagement, intervening where standards, financial management or delivery fall short.
Tiered (universal, targeted and intensive) support is available from the FE Commissioner’s team for FE colleges and local authority providers using a risk-based approach. If an intervention trigger is met the FE Commissioner’s will undertake an intervention assessment and publish their findings with recommended actions to improve.
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 permits civil servants employed in the UK to work from overseas on a regular basis.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
Ministers do not permit employees to work from overseas on a regular basis. Employees are able to request an exception to work from overseas for a temporary period of time in the following limited circumstances. These include short-term situations, such as bereavement or urgent care responsibilities, where there are no alternatives, when accompanying a Civil Service partner who has been posted overseas for an agreed period of time or a UK Armed Forces or Ministry of Defence civilian partner on an overseas posting, or when working in an official capacity on departmental business.
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 her Department has spent on advertising on podcasts in each of the last three years.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
This information is not held in the requested format.
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 permits (1) Ministers, (2) Special advisers and (3) officials to use (a) Chat GPT, (b) Google Gemini, (c) Claude, (d) Deepseek and (e) Grok as part of their official duties.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
The government is committed to harnessing the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the productivity of the Civil Service and the quality of public services. Ministers, special advisers and officials may only use generative AI tools that have been approved by their department for official use.
Within the department, colleagues are encouraged to use Microsoft Copilot Chat as the approved enterprise chatbot. Claude is also sanctioned for use by a limited number of technical staff. These tools are configured to ensure departmental data is held securely and is not used to train publicly available AI models.
The use of publicly available or consumer versions of generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Grok and DeepSeek is not permitted for use with departmental information.
The use of generative AI across government is governed by the AI Playbook for the UK Government, which set out the principles for the safe, responsible and effective use of these tools.