Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
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 section 68 of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 on the funding routes available for new secondary school provision required to serve strategic housing development sites.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
These sections of the Act allow, alongside proposals for new academies, for local authorities to invite proposals for other types of school and to put forward their own proposals. Allowing additional routes to delivery helps to ensure that good schools are opened when they are needed, particularly where the right high-quality academy trust is not immediately available. As such, these changes support local authorities in fulfilling their place planning function.
We provide local authorities with capital funding through the Basic Need capital grant to support them to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts.
Developer contributions are also an important way of helping to meet demand for new school places when housing developments are driving pupil numbers. While Basic Need allocations can be used for new school places that are required due to housing development, we would expect the amount used to meet this demand to be the minimum necessary to maintain development viability.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of legal mechanisms available to local authorities to repay Community Infrastructure Levy charges in cases of genuine homeowner error; and whether the consultation on amending the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 will include proposals to give charging authorities a statutory power to (a) waive and (b) refund such charges.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the hon. Member to the correspondence sent on 25 June 2026 to leaders and Chief Executives of all Community Infrastructure Levy charging authorities in England, which can be found on gov.uk here.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on ensuring that the timings of funding for secondary school provision for the development of strategic sites to support the delivery of housing infrastructure.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Secretary of State engages regularly with ministerial colleagues, including the Secretary of State for Education, on a range of matters. In line with the practice of successive administrations, details of internal discussions are not routinely disclosed.
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) recognises the importance of ensuring a sufficient choice of early years, school and post-16 places is available to meet the needs of existing and new communities. The Framework makes clear that local planning authorities should give great weight to the need to create, expand or alter early years, schools and post-16 facilities through the preparation of plans and decisions on applications, and work with early years, school and post-16 promoters, delivery partners and statutory bodies to identify and resolve key planning issues before applications are submitted.
Between 16 December 2025 and 10 March 2026, we consulted on a new NPPF. That consultation, which can be found on gov.uk here, included proposals relating to public service infrastructure, including secondary schools. The proposed policy on community facilities and public service infrastructure serving new development (HC3) sets out that planning conditions and obligations should be used to secure the timely delivery of community facilities and public service infrastructure required to serve new development, so that these facilities are available for use when the development (or an agreed proportion of the development) is first occupied or comes into use. We are currently analysing the feedback received to the consultation and will publish our response in due course.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a specific legal working temperature for schools.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government’s position is that schools should remain open wherever it is safe, allowing as many pupils as possible to attend rather than applying a fixed maximum temperature for closure.
Responsible bodies must make decisions based on the suitability of their buildings and mitigations for the impact of heat, ensuring the health, safety and welfare of pupils and staff.