Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that schools have more notice of future rounds of PE and sport premium funding.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is currently considering arrangements for the primary PE and Sport premium for the 2023/24 academic year and beyond and will confirm the position as early as possible.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the effectiveness of the tax-free childcare offer.
Answered by John Glen - Shadow Paymaster General
HM Treasury and the Department for Education work closely together on all childcare policy, including Tax-Free Childcare. Take-up of Tax-Free Childcare is on a steady upward trajectory: at the end of June 2022 (the most recent data) an estimated 391,000 families used Tax-Free Childcare for 468,000 children.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress his Department has made on the delivery of measures proposed by the Right Support, Right Place, Right Time Green Paper.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) green paper consultation closed on 22 July 2022. The department is currently reviewing the feedback received and using this, along with continued engagement with the SEND system, to inform the next stage of delivering improvements for children, young people and their families.
The department is committed to publishing a full response to the green paper in an Improvement Plan in early 2023.
Ahead of the Improvement Plan being published, we are taking forward two additional measures to support children with SEND. The first is an investment of £21 million into training 400 more educational psychologists, who play a critical role in the educational support available to children with SEND. The second is the extension of a training programme for up to 150 more schools, for teachers to use assistive technology to better support their pupils with SEND.
These measures will continue to support the system in delivering change and continue to improve the outcomes and experiences of children and young people with SEND and those who need AP.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of parents took up the childcare offer (a) for two-year-olds, (b) of 15 hours for three- and four-year-olds and (c) of 30 hours for three- and four-year-olds, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Data relating to government-funded early education and childcare is published in the annual Education provision: children under 5 years of age statistical release: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-provision-children-under-5.
The figures requested for (a) and (b) can be found at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/c630228b-c8d7-4fbf-9467-08dacc5b2c16.
The number of children registered for (c) can be found at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/c212be1a-6230-457c-9468-08dacc5b2c16.
Three to four-year-olds whose parents (or the sole parent in a lone parent household) work at least sixteen hours a week at national minimum wage or living wage, but earn under £100,000 per year, are eligible for this extended offer of thirty hours of childcare. Based on the department’s analyses of data from various surveys, an estimated four in five eligible children took up the offer in the most recent year.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of investing in greater specialist training for the identification of additional needs amongst the early years workforce.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The government is investing up to £180 million in early years COVID-19 recovery. This is a package of training, qualifications and targeted support for the early years sector to support the learning and development of the youngest and most disadvantaged children. This includes a focus on child development, communication and language, early maths and personal, social and emotional development.
The early years Professional Development Programme has already provided 1,300 early years professionals with such training and up to 10,000 more staff will be trained in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years. We will also train up to 5,000 early years staff and childminders to become qualified Special Educational Needs Coordinators.
In addition, we have invested £17 million in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, improving the language skills of an estimated 90,000 children in reception classes. This proven, evidence-based programme targets children needing extra support with their speech and language development and is proven to help them make around 3 months of additional progress. Two thirds of primary schools (over 11,000) signed up, and the majority of those had Free School Meal rates above the national average.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure the viability of upper tier authorities charged with supporting the needs of high needs pupils.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Following the additional funding increases announced in the Chancellor’s recent Autumn Statement, local authorities’ high needs funding will be rising to £10.1 billion in 2023/24, an increase of over 50% from the 2019/20 allocations. This extra funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
The department recognises that a number of local authorities have struggled to manage their high needs systems sustainably in recent years, and have accrued Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficits as a result. Following investment through the Spending Review 2021, the department is running three programmes aimed at helping local authorities with the financial sustainability of their high needs systems., Support and intervention is tailored to the severity of the problems authorities are facing. Those with the highest percentage DSG deficits have been invited to the Safety Valve intervention programme. Those with substantial, but less severe deficits, have been invited to join the Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme. Other local authorities are being contacted by the Education and Skills Funding Association.
In 2020, the government also introduced a statutory override which separates local authorities’ DSG deficits from their wider financial position. The statutory override was put in place for a period of three years, up to March 2023, and meant that local authorities’ DSG deficits could be separated from their wider accounts.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities understand that a decision on the DSG statutory override needs to be communicated to the sector as soon as possible to provide certainty for the next – and future - financial years. An announcement will be made shortly.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what data his Department holds on the take up of tax-free childcare in each of the last five years; and what steps he is taking to increase its take up.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The figures for open and used accounts for Tax-Free Childcare are published in Official Statistics. The latest release in November 2022 relates to figures up to September 2022 and are provided in the table below.
Number of: (1000s) | Financial Year | ||||
2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | |
Children with Open Accounts* | 314 | 537 | 768 | 901 | 1,093 |
Children with Used Accounts* | 72 | 203 | 396 | 462 | 647 |
Families with Open Accounts | 272 | 449 | 615 | 697 | 816 |
Families with Used Accounts | 57 | 160 | 315 | 374 | 512 |
* This refers to the number of children for whom accounts are open/used. A used account is one where a payment has been made to a childcare provider within the financial year. An open account is one where a family has met the eligibility criteria and may or may not have made a payment. This shows that in 2021-22 approximately 512,000 families used Tax-Free Childcare for 647,000 children
The Government is committed to supporting families with their childcare costs, including through Tax-Free Childcare (TFC). In July this year, we launched a £1.2 million communications campaign to help parents to access childcare support. This includes adverts through a variety of media channels, online, radio, television, newspaper and billboards. Additionally, we have worked with childcare providers at local levels to help parents better understand the support that is available to them.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children have been out of school for a year or more due to not being able to find a setting to meet their needs in (a) England and (b) Worcestershire.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local Authorities hold the duty under section 436A of the Education Act 1996 to identify children of compulsory school age in their area who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise. Between 6 October and 4 November this year, the Department requested Local Authoritoes aggregate data on Elective Home Education and Children Missing Education to improve its understanding of these cohorts. This data is currently being analysed and will be published in due course.
It is also the responsibility of Local Authorities to ensure there are sufficient school places for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The Children and Families Act 2014 requires Local Authorities to keep the provision for children and young people with SEND under review, including its sufficiency, working with parents, young people, and schools.
In March 2022, the Department announced High Needs Provision Capital Allocations (HNPCA) amounting to over £1.4 billion of new investment. This funding is to support Local Authorities to deliver new places for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. Worcestershire received a total of just over £10.7 million through the HNPCA. Prior to that, the Local Authority received just over £1.5 million through its 2021/22 HNPCA funding, announced in April 2021.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to support Paralympic sport.
Answered by David Evennett
The Government, through UK Sport, is investing almost £73m into 18 summer Paralympic sports during the Rio 2016 cycle, an increase of 48% from London 2012, and £3.9m into 2 winter Paralympic sports during the current cycle.
In addition, Sport England is investing over £170m to make sport a practical and attractive lifestyle choice for disabled people and to get more disabled people playing sport.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were refused entry to the UK under a European Arrest Warrant in each of the last five years.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office does not hold data on those refused entry to the UK under a European Arrest Warrant. Border Force officers have the power to detain an individual subject to an EAW, pending the arrival of the police. Statistics are not kept on EAW arrests made at the border.