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 criteria will be used to determine how the new growth and skills levy may be spent; and whether a criteria will be published.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government’s first mission is to kickstart economic growth. We know that skills gaps are holding back business growth and that we need to support employers to invest in skills training. Our new levy-funded growth and skills offer will introduce greater flexibility to employers and learners in England, creating routes into good, skilled jobs in growing industries, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy.
The new training offer will include shorter duration apprenticeships. From August 2025, subject to the legislative timetable, the minimum duration of an apprenticeship will be reduced to eight months. This change means apprentices will be able to achieve occupational competence more quickly, where appropriate.
The department will also introduce foundation apprenticeships for young people, a work-based offer providing high-quality progression pathways into further work-based training and employment, including occupationally specific apprenticeships.
In response to feedback from employers and learners, the department has already introduced flexibilities for employers to the English and mathematics requirements for adult apprentices.
These are the first steps in expanding the apprenticeships offer into a wider levy-funded growth and skills offer that works better for employers, individuals and the wider economy. The government has established Skills England to form a coherent national picture of skills gaps across all sectors and to help shape the technical education system so that it is responsive to skills needs. This will include advising on priorities for the new growth and skills offer.
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 her planned timetable is for establishing Skills England on a statutory basis.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Skills England is already operational in shadow form and the government intends for it to be established as an executive agency soon. This model of arm’s length body provides a strong fit for Skills England as it can be operationalised quickly and provides independence, while ensuring sufficient proximity to the department, so that Skills England can inform decisions on skills policy and delivery.
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 recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of school uniform costs on families in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings to the answer of 21 March 2025 to Question 38113.
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 proportion of food procured by her Department is sourced in the UK.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
To date the government has not held information on where publicly procured food is sourced from.
Starting right away, for the first time ever, this government will review the food currently bought in the public sector to determine the standards that it is meeting, where it is bought from, and look to introduce monitoring for transparency and accountability within those supply chains to ultimately get the best food for the consumer.
This work will be a significant first step to inform any future changes to public sector catering contracts.
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 improve support for care leavers in rural areas.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department knows that care leavers have some of the worst outcomes in society and we are committed to ensuring that all young people leaving care, irrespective of where they live, have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships, and are engaged in education, employment and training.
While many of the issues that care leavers face will be common to all young people leaving care, the department knows that those who live in rural areas can face additional challenges, such as fewer employment opportunities, limited public transport and increased risk of loneliness and isolation, which can make their transition to independence more difficult.
All local authorities are required to publish their ‘local offer’ for care leavers, which provides information about the statutory support that all care leavers are entitled to, and any discretionary services the local authority provides, to support care leavers in their transition to adulthood. Each local authority’s local offer should reflect the particular circumstances faced by its care leavers, including those that arise due to the fact that they live in a rural location.
The department is strengthening the local offer through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to drive forward our manifesto commitments on children’s social care. The Bill will provide ‘Staying close support’ across the country, including in rural areas, for care leavers up to the age of 25. Staying close will increase support for young people leaving residential care through move-on accommodation and ongoing support from a keyworker.
The Bill will also require each local authority to publish the arrangements it has in place to support and assist care leavers, particularly around accommodation and joint working between local authority care leaver and housing teams.
Local housing authorities owe various duties to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. In certain circumstances local housing authorities have a duty to secure settled accommodation for them, but this is only the case where, in addition to other criteria, the person is not found to have become homeless intentionally. Through the Bill, we are removing intentional homelessness decisions for eligible care leavers to further strengthen support for this vulnerable cohort.
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 estimate she has made of the number of children that have moved from independent to state schools as a result of applying VAT to independent schools in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) the East Midlands.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has made no separate estimate of the number of pupils in individual local authority areas who have left the independent school system as a result of VAT on school fees.
The government predicts that, in the long-term steady state, there will be 37,000 fewer pupils in the private sector in the UK as a result of the removal of the VAT exemption applied to school fees. This represents around 6% of the current private school population.
Of the expected 37,000 pupil reduction in the private sector, the government estimates an increase of 35,000 pupils in the state sector in the steady state following the VAT policy taking effect, with the other 2,000 consisting of international pupils who do not move into the UK state system and domestic pupils moving into homeschooling. This state sector increase represents less than 0.5% of total UK state school pupils, of which there are over 9 million. This movement is expected to take place over several years.
The impact on individual local authorities will interact with other pressures and vary between authorities. Every year, many pupils move between schools, including between the private and state-funded sectors.
Local authorities routinely support parents who need a state-funded school place, including where private schools have closed. Where local authorities are experiencing difficulties in ensuring there are enough school places for children that need them, the department will offer support and advice.
The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They can use this funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools.
Local authorities in the East Midlands region have been allocated a total of £177.1 million, including £23.2 million for Lincolnshire, to support the provision of new mainstream school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026.
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 support children's services in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
For the 2025/25 financial year, the government is providing Lincolnshire with £7.5 million of funding specifically for children’s services, made up of £4.3 million through the Children and Families Grant, and £3.2 million though the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant.
More broadly, the government announced major reforms which will support all local authority children’s services in the department’s policy statement ’Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive‘, published in November. This sets out the government’s approach to creating a children’s social care system that prioritises the needs of children and families, with a focus on prevention, high standards of care, and tackling systemic issues like profiteering in the care market and workforce instability.
As part of the delivery of Children’s Social Care reforms the department has been working closely with Lincolnshire as a 'Families First Pathfinder', funding the local authority to test the delivery of new ways of working.
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 plans to take to support the provision of sixth form education in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All young people should have access to high quality education and training that meets their needs and provides them with opportunities to thrive. Over £7.5 billion of 16-19 programme funding will be invested during the 2024/25 academic year.
As announced at the Autumn Budget 2024, the government is providing an additional £300 million for further education in the 2025/26 financial year to ensure young people are developing the skills they need to succeed.
Local authorities have statutory duties to support young people into education and training, which includes securing sufficient suitable education and training provision. There are currently four secondary schools offering post-16 sixth form provision in the South Holland and the Deepings constituency. All four sixth-form provisions received sub-judgements of good in their latest published Ofsted inspections.
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 primary school children are eligible for free school meals in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As of January 2024, 2,166, or 26%, of state-funded primary school pupils attending schools in South Holland and the Deepings constituency were eligible for and claiming free school meals. This compares with a rate of 24% of primary school pupils in the whole of England.
The figures are from the school census and published down to school level in official statistics, accessible at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what purposes the Education and Skills Funding Agency has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country.
The Education and Skills Finding Agency (ESFA) has aligned to the wider departmental approach in this area. Specifically, the department has been using Microsoft Copilot, an AI-based web chat with commercial protection, for various means, including:
In addition, 150 people across the department are piloting Microsoft 365 Copilot, which leverages AI to automate and accelerate tasks in Microsoft Products. This work included people from the ESFA. The department is tracking the benefits of this pilot, which currently include:
Since summer 2023, the department has created a secure Microsoft Azure Open AI sandbox environment. The ESFA has also utilised this facility. This allows limited groups of users to build and test AI models based on specific uses cases, in a safe and secure environment. Use cases including those from the ESFA are approved by a technology-led steering group, and this group will ultimately decide on which applications could potentially be moved into production for use more broadly across the organisation.
The department draws on a range of resources, published on GOV.UK, to inform our AI usage. For example, the Generative AI Framework, the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework, the Data Ethics Framework, the AI Opportunities Action Plan and the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard.
The department has also had access to the Central Digital and Data Office, based in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, for expert advice.