Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase awareness and funding for (a) materials and mining programmes of study and (b) science and engineering apprenticeships and qualifications in the quarrying sector.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government supports education and skills training in the minerals, mining and quarrying sectors through:
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what oversight mechanisms exist to ensure that behaviour policies adopted by further education colleges do not disproportionately disadvantage young people with SEND.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Further education (FE) colleges are subject to statutory and regulatory oversight to ensure that policies do not disadvantage learners with special educational needs and disabilities. Colleges must comply with the Equality Act 2010, including the duty to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled learners, including those with learning difficulties, are not placed at a substantial disadvantage.
Colleges must also meet equality and safeguarding requirements set out in their funding agreements. Where providers fail to meet legal or regulatory duties, the department has powers to support and take further action.
Ofsted plays a key role in assessing how effectively providers support learners with high needs. Under its renewed framework, inspectors evaluate participation, development, and behaviour expectations across provision types.
Inspectors evaluate participation and development across different FE and skills settings and consider the nature of the learners, along with differences in approach to behaviour monitoring and management for different groups of learners.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support is in place to support local authorities with Best Start Family Hubs to ensure their offer is effective and evidence-based.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Through the delivery grant, all local authorities will receive funding from the department for developing and implementing Best Start local plans. This includes funding for a Best Start in Life system leadership function to take forward transformation activity locally, connecting and integrating local partners to respond to local needs.
Further detail on this was shared with local authorities via funding allocation letters on 7 November, covering the three financial years 2026-29. Evidence based intervention (EBI) menus have also been developed and shared to support local authorities in selecting programmes that are both impactful and feasible to deliver starting from April 2026.
Local authorities will be supported to embed and enhance their family hubs models, be ambitious in their approach, and integrate EBIs. The National Centre for Family Hubs, which is a delivery support provider is also working closely with local authorities to help them to identify the right EBIs suited to their population needs.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
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 providing match-funding for incentive payments to Stepladder PLUS.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department wants to ensure that children leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships, and are engaged in education, employment and training.
We recognise the importance of financial skills, such as those provided through the Stepladder Plus programme, in achieving this aim. The department currently supports the use of this programme through its contract, for the provision of Junior ISA savings accounts to children in care, with the Share Foundation. We do not currently have any plans to assess the merits of match-funding.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support rural primary schools with declining pupil numbers.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The government recognises the challenges some schools are facing due to falling pupil rolls.
Local authorities hold the statutory place planning function, ensuring there are sufficient schools in their area to meet the needs of pupils. It is for local authorities, in collaboration with academy trusts and other local partners, to balance the supply and demand of school places, in line with changing demographics, as they have done for many years.
We expect local authorities and their partners to consider options for the utilisation of space, including repurposing space for early years, where primary schools can play a crucial role in the delivery of new places, and special educational needs and disabilities provision, as well as options for the reconfiguration or merging of provision where appropriate.
Local authorities may also set aside some of the ‘schools block’ funding of their Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) to support falling rolls. This is intended to support schools where planning data shows that the surplus places will be needed in future years. The department has allocated £176 million in Growth and Falling Rolls funding to local authorities in 2025/26 through the DSG. The responsibility for how Growth and Falling Rolls funding is allocated rests with the local authority.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of levels of school transport provision in remote rural areas.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Derbyshire Dales to the answer of 9 June 2025 to Question 54948.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the impact of informal and disguised employment in the beauty sector on the number of apprenticeship places available in hairdressing and beauty.
Answered by Janet Daby
Apprenticeships are jobs with training, and it is for employers in the hair and beauty sector to decide how they use apprenticeships to meet their skills needs.
The sector has developed several apprenticeship standards, including the level 2 hairdressing professional standard. To support smaller employers to access apprenticeships, the government pays the full training costs for young apprentices aged 16 to 21, and for apprentices aged 22 to 24 who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan or have been in local authority care.
Employers can benefit from £1,000 payments when they take on apprentices aged 16 to 18, or apprentices aged 19 to 24 who have an EHC plan or have been in local authority care. Employers can choose how they spend these payments. Employers are also not required to pay anything towards employees’ National Insurance for all apprentices aged up to age 25, where they earn less than £50,270 a year.