Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
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 introducing specific (a) Sikh and (b) Jewish options for a person’s ethnic group in data collection conducted by her Department.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department collects ethnicity data in line with the ethnicity harmonised standard, which is developed by the independent Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The current harmonised standard is based on the 2011 Census questions used across the UK. Those questions were updated for the 2021 and 2022 Censuses. The current standard does not include specific “Sikh” and “Jewish” categories for a person’s ethnic group.
The ONS is reviewing the harmonised standard to ensure this remains appropriate and meets the needs of both data users and respondents. This will include a public consultation later this year. We await the outcome of this review.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of classifications that children's services use to record child sexual abuse.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The number of episodes of children in need with the ‘sexual abuse’ and ‘child sexual exploitation’ factors identified in an assessment in the year ending 31 March 2024 can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/12ce1c63-e357-4177-3d87-08ddae36ea5c. Factors identified at the end of assessment are additional factors that social workers record as being relevant in a case.
These figures are based on assessment factors recorded against individual episodes of need, which begin when a child is referred to children’s social care services and is assessed as being in need of children’s social care services. Each unique factor is counted once against a given episode, irrespective of the number of times the same factor was recorded in that episode. However, as a child can have more than one episode of need during the year ending 31 March, the same child can be recorded more than once for a given factor.
The majority of children have more than one unique factor recorded for each episode of need. It should be noted that not all episodes have factors recorded, but this has improved over time. Nonetheless, there can be differences in the recording practices between local authorities. Therefore this data should be treated with caution and should not be taken to represent the national, regional or local authority prevalence of particular issues.
The number of child protection plans as at 31 March 2024 where sexual abuse was the initial or latest category of abuse is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a9a79795-cdd0-42fc-8333-08ddaf142d69.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish the number of students enrolled in higher education in the (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2023-24 academic years, broken down by religion.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Statistics on higher education (HE) student enrolments by personal characteristics, including the number of HE student enrolments in the 2023/24 and 2023/24 academic years broken down by religious beliefs, are published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency and can be found here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/sb271/figure-5.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of five year olds were school ready in (a) Birmingham Edgbaston constituency, (b) Birmingham and (c) the West Midlands in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Children’s early years are crucial to their development, health and life chances. That is why the department’s Plan for Change set out our ambition for a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn in the classroom. We will measure our progress through 75% of children reaching a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile assessment by 2028.
The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile was significantly revised in September 2021. It is therefore not possible to directly compare assessment outcomes since 2021/22 with earlier years.
The department has published data through the early years foundation stage teacher assessment since 2021/2022 which can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results/2023-24.
Local authority and regional data from 2013 to 2019 can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2018-to-2019.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to provide opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to learn a musical instrument.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Music is an essential part of supporting children and young people to develop creativity and find their voice. The government believes creative subjects like music, art and drama are important elements of the rounded and enriching education every child deserves.
On 18 March 2025, the department announced its intention to launch a National Centre for Arts and Music Education to promote opportunities for children and young people to pursue their artistic and creative interests in school, including through the government’s network of music hubs. The department intends to launch this centre in September 2026, with a delivery lead appointed through an open procurement. Further details will be released in due course.
To support the delivery of music education, the government has committed £79 million per year for the music hubs programme, including the 2024/25 academic year. The 43 music hubs partnerships across England offer a range of services, including musical instrument tuition, instrument loaning and whole-class ensemble teaching. All partnerships have a local plan in place with an inclusion strategy that sets out specific support for disadvantaged children, including young people eligible for the pupil premium and those identified with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). To widen access to musical instruments, the government is investing £25 million in capital funding for musical instruments, equipment and technology from the 2024/25 academic year.
The government is also investing £2 million to support the Music Opportunities Pilot over a four-year period from the 2024/25 academic year to the 2027/28 academic year, backed by a further £3.85 million funding from Arts Council England and Youth Music. This pilot is delivered by Young Sounds UK in 12 areas of the country and aims to help disadvantaged children and young people, as well as those with SEND, to learn how to play an instrument of their choice or learn to sing to a high standard. The findings from the pilot will inform future policy on widening music opportunities.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve access to music education in schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Music is an essential part of supporting children and young people to develop creativity and find their voice. The government believes creative subjects like music, art and drama are important elements of the rounded and enriching education every child deserves.
On 18 March 2025, the department announced its intention to launch a National Centre for Arts and Music Education to promote opportunities for children and young people to pursue their artistic and creative interests in school, including through the government’s network of music hubs. The department intends to launch this centre in September 2026, with a delivery lead appointed through an open procurement. Further details will be released in due course.
To support the delivery of music education, the government has committed £79 million per year for the music hubs programme, including the 2024/25 academic year. The 43 music hubs partnerships across England offer a range of services, including musical instrument tuition, instrument loaning and whole-class ensemble teaching. All partnerships have a local plan in place with an inclusion strategy that sets out specific support for disadvantaged children, including young people eligible for the pupil premium and those identified with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). To widen access to musical instruments, the government is investing £25 million in capital funding for musical instruments, equipment and technology from the 2024/25 academic year.
The government is also investing £2 million to support the Music Opportunities Pilot over a four-year period from the 2024/25 academic year to the 2027/28 academic year, backed by a further £3.85 million funding from Arts Council England and Youth Music. This pilot is delivered by Young Sounds UK in 12 areas of the country and aims to help disadvantaged children and young people, as well as those with SEND, to learn how to play an instrument of their choice or learn to sing to a high standard. The findings from the pilot will inform future policy on widening music opportunities.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate she has made of the number of young people not in education, employment or training in (a) Birmingham and b) Birmingham, Edgbaston constituency.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department publishes statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the Labour Force Survey for young people aged 16-24. An overview of the publication can be found here:https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief.
The number of 16-24-year-olds estimated as NEET in England at the end of 2024 is estimated to be 837,000, which is equivalent to 13.6% of the population. These estimates are not available at lower-level geographies due to limitations with sample sizes. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16-24 in Birmingham and Birmingham Edgbaston constituency are not available.
However, local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people aged 16 and 17. Data for the 2023/24 academic year was published in ‘Participation in education, training and NEET age 16 to 17 by local authority’, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/participation-in-education-training-and-neet-age-16-to-17-by-local-authority/2023-24.
The data shows that of the 33,264 young people aged 16 and 17 years old who were known to Birmingham local authority at the end of 2023, 2,037 were NEET or their activity was not known. These statistics are published as transparency data, so some caution should be taken if using these figures.
In addition, 16-18 destination measures are published. These official statistics show the percentage of pupils not continuing to a sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination in the year after completing 16-18 study. This can be used as a proxy to determine how many can be classified as NEET at the age of 18. The latest publication includes destinations in 2022/23 by parliamentary constituency boundaries at that time. Data can be found here for Birmingham Edgbaston parliamentary constituency: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/8969680b-7fea-4615-ce51-08dd66bfee22.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to boost physical activity among children and young people.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to providing all young people with more opportunities to be physically active. We have set out our intention to support more children to be active by protecting time for PE in schools and working across government to support the role grassroots clubs play in expanding access to sport and physical activity.
To further support children to be active, this government committed £320 million for the primary PE and sport premium this academic year (2024/25), benefiting over 18,000 schools and around 3.9 million pupils in England.
The department has also launched an open procurement for a new grant programme from spring 2025, of up to £300,000 a year. This will focus on improving and increasing PE, school sport and physical activity opportunities for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
The department is working with the Department for Health and Social Care and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport when considering our future investment into PE and school sport, to ensure this enables the maximum benefit to providing children with opportunities to be physically active.
The department also launched an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review in 2024 which will seek to deliver a curriculum which is rich and broad, inclusive and innovative, so that all children and young people do not miss out on subjects such as music, art, PE and drama, as well as vocational subjects. The interim report of findings was published on 18 March 2025.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to provide additional funding to universities to help support international students from Sudan whose families have been displaced by the war in that country.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government appreciates the difficult circumstances that students from Sudan may currently be facing.
Students experiencing financial difficulties should contact their university to discuss their circumstances. Higher education (HE) providers have their own hardship funds to support students who have financial issues and, like domestic students, international students can apply to their provider to access these funds. HE providers also offer a range of dedicated support to their international students pre-arrival, on-arrival and during their studies.
In addition, the UK Council for International Student Affairs offers a range of information and guidance for international students who may be experiencing unexpected financial hardship, which can be found here: https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Information--Advice/Fees-and-Money/Unexpected-financial-hardship.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has had discussions with representatives of Oxford Cambridge and RSA on the adequacy of the GCSE Computer Science examination taken by students on 25 May 2023.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Dr Jo Saxton, to write to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.