Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy for schools to (a) appoint a designated young carers lead and (b) implement a (i) flagging and (ii) registration scheme for young carers.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The statutory guidance 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' states that all school staff should be alert to the potential need for early help for young carers and requires designated safeguarding leads to be trained to understand and respond to their needs, ensuring young carers are supported to thrive in school.
We have no plans to introduce a registration scheme for young carers. Local authorities have a statutory duty to identify young carers who may need support and undertake a needs assessment where support may be needed, or upon request.
To further improve visibility and support, young carers were added to the school census as a distinct group in 2022/23. This has increased their visibility in the school system, providing valuable demographic data and insights into their educational outcomes.
Further, Ofsted’s new education inspection framework references young carers when assessing the impact of a school’s work on attendance, behaviour, personal development and wellbeing of disadvantaged pupils.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that Palestinian students in Gaza who are eligible to apply for visas and scholarships for UK courses beginning before December 2025 are able to access university places, in the context of many UK institutions having already closed their applications for the 2025 academic year.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government outlined plans for how it is supporting students travelling to the United Kingdom from Gaza in a policy statement published on 15 September 2025 available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/support-for-students-travelling-to-the-uk-from-gaza/scholarships-for-students-from-gaza.
To be eligible to come to the UK under this approach, students must submit a student visa application, which will need to be sponsored by their university, and pay associated fees.
Students must:
The government remains committed to doing everything we can to assist eligible students to leave Gaza, specifically those who hold full scholarships to UK universities with course start dates no later than 31 December 2025.
The government is making every effort to support this process. However, a student’s journey from Gaza to the UK cannot be guaranteed, and timelines remain subject to external factors, outside the government’s control.
The government is working with the devolved governments and universities to identify eligible students, and to ensure students receive the support they need for the duration of their studies.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce the number of schools awaiting essential building repairs.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Ensuring schools and colleges have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of the department’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every young person the best start in life.
This government has given a long-term commitment through to the 2034/35 financial year to improve the condition of our schools and colleges across England. The department is investing almost £3 billion per year by the 2034/35 financial year in capital maintenance and renewal to improve the condition of the school and college estate, rising from £2.4 billion in 2025/26.
The department is also investing almost £20 billion in the School Rebuilding Programme through to the 2034/35 financial year, delivering rebuilding projects at over 500 schools across England within the existing programme and expanding rebuilding, with a further 250 schools to be selected within the next two years.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of levels of funding for supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department has allocated high needs funding of over £12 billion specifically for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the current 2025/26 financial year. The funding announced at the 2025 Spending Review, which provided an increase of £4.2 billion for schools over the next three years, will enable a significant investment in the support available for pupils with SEND within mainstream schools, facilitating reform of the SEND system to make those schools more inclusive. We are continuing to engage closely with children, parents and experts as we develop plans to ensure all children get the outcomes and life chances they deserve.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
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 levels of changes in real-terms funding since 2010 on schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
School funding is increasing by £3.7 billion in the 2025/26 financial year, meaning that core school budgets will total £65.3 billion, compared with £61.6 billion in 2024/25. This is set to rise by a further £4.2 billion by the 2028/29 financial year. This settlement more than protects per-pupil funding in real terms and supports our mission to help all children and young people achieve and thrive.
The department’s schools funding statistics show what changes in school funding since 2010 have meant for per-pupil funding in real terms. The statistics can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics/2024-25. Based on the GDP deflator, real-terms funding per pupil fell in the mid-2010s but has since risen and is now above the 2010/11 financial year levels. School funding per pupil in the 2025/26 financial year is 8.7% higher than 2010/11 in real terms.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that school staff receive training on how to support pupils with epilepsy.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Governing bodies must ensure that the arrangements they put in place are sufficient to meet their statutory responsibilities and that policies, plans, procedures and systems are properly and effectively implemented. This includes the duty under Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions and the duties under the Equality Act 2010. The effectiveness of a school is assessed through inspection by Ofsted.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of amending statutory guidance on home to school transport so that local authorities are required to consider providing free or subsidised transport from more than one parental address in cases of formally agreed 50/50 shared custody.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The Education Act 1996 requires local authorities to arrange free home-to-school travel for eligible children of compulsory school age, 5 to 16. The department publishes statutory guidance to help them fulfil this duty. Neither the guidance, nor the law, expects local authorities to provide an eligible child with free travel to and from more than one address. It would not be reasonable for them to do this in every case.
The guidance does however stipulate that local authorities should make clear in their school travel policies how they will determine a child’s home address for the purposes of assessing their eligibility for travel, including in circumstances where their parents do not live together and the child spends part of the week with each parent.
There are no plans to change this, but local authorities do have a discretionary power to arrange travel for other children and may use this to arrange travel to and from more than one address if they choose to do so.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of improving food, farming, and sustainability education on public health.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
As part of the last reform of the national curriculum, an equalities impact assessment was carried out to evaluate whether the proposed changes would impact positively or negatively on groups with protected characteristics. This equalities impact assessment is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/211061/Equalities_impact_assessment_-_FINAL_v3.pdf.
Additionally, Public Health England provided a framework that guides teachers in applying best practice for food education in secondary schools. It is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80d9c440f0b62305b8d7ff/Foodteaching_Secondaryguidelines_FINAL.pdf.
The curriculum and assessment system in England is currently under review by an independent panel of experts. The Curriculum and Assessment Review is now carrying out further investigation into specific policy and subject issues, working closely with the sector and building on the body of evidence gathered so far. No decisions about individual subjects have yet been made. Any subject-specific findings and recommendations that come out of the Review will be included in the final report which will be published in autumn.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will work with the Secretary of State for Education to embed food, farming and sustainability education in the national curriculum.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member for South Cotswolds to the response of 8 September 2025 to Question 72659.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has conducted impact assessments of food, farming, and sustainability education policy in the context of her Department's duties under the Equality Act 2010.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
As part of the last reform of the national curriculum, an equalities impact assessment was carried out to evaluate whether the proposed changes would impact positively or negatively on groups with protected characteristics. This equalities impact assessment is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/211061/Equalities_impact_assessment_-_FINAL_v3.pdf.
Additionally, Public Health England provided a framework that guides teachers in applying best practice for food education in secondary schools. It is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80d9c440f0b62305b8d7ff/Foodteaching_Secondaryguidelines_FINAL.pdf.
The curriculum and assessment system in England is currently under review by an independent panel of experts. The Curriculum and Assessment Review is now carrying out further investigation into specific policy and subject issues, working closely with the sector and building on the body of evidence gathered so far. No decisions about individual subjects have yet been made. Any subject-specific findings and recommendations that come out of the Review will be included in the final report which will be published in autumn.