Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support adoption services.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
On 2 April, the department confirmed funding of £8.8 million for Adoption England to improve the recruitment of adopters, matching of children, and family support during the 2025/26 financial year.
This includes funding to develop more Centres of Excellence as multidisciplinary teams across the country to provide specialist and therapeutic support to families and the development of national standards for adoption support. It also includes a new framework for an early support core offer, ‘Becoming a Family’, for the first twelve to eighteen months of placement and an Adoption Support Plan to guide assessments of a family’s support needs. All are designed to improve support and reduce the risk of an adoption breakdown.
Adoption England are also planning work to develop a national protocol on how children’s services, front door services and adoption support teams work together to better support families at risk of adoption disruption.
Adoption England and regional adoption agencies work closely with adopters to improve adoption support services. This includes considering the latest evidence of why adoption disruptions have occurred in their agencies and across the country.
Since its inception in 2015, the department has provided over £400 million through the adoption and special guardianship support fund (ASGSF) to provide therapeutic interventions for around 52,700 children who have left care under an adoption, special guardianship or child arrangements order. The interventions are designed to help children and their families to deal with their trauma and attachment difficulties and have been independently assessed to have helped prevent adoption breakdowns.
On 1 April, it was announced that the ASGSF would continue into 2025/26, with a budget of £50 million. A further announcement about arrangements for applications will be made as soon as possible. We remain committed to supporting families, who play an essential role in providing stable and loving homes for children in need.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to provide affordable childcare to parents in (a) work and (b) further education.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is the department’s ambition that parents have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and childcare.
Next year alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, a more than 30% increase compared to 2024/25, as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements, so eligible working parents of children aged from nine months can access 30 hours of funded childcare.
From the start of September 2024, eligible working parents have been entitled to 15 hours a week of early education and care from the term after their child turns nine months old. So far, over 320,000 additional parents are now accessing a place.
The department is expanding the childcare entitlements so that from September 2025, eligible working parents can access 30 hours of early education and childcare a week, over 38 weeks of the year, from the term after their child turns nine months old until they start school.
As we grow the childcare system, it is important it remains fair and accessible to all parents. We have taken action to protect parents from reported instances of very high additional charges or ‘top-up fees’ on top of their entitlement, ensuring the funded hours remain accessible and affordable for families, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds where it makes the biggest difference. We have updated the statutory guidance on government-funded entitlements that relates to additional charges, helping local authorities ensure there is clarity and consistency for parents and providers.
Parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit Childcare.
The department wants to ensure that parents are aware of and accessing all government funded childcare support they are eligible for. The department is raising awareness of the government funded childcare support available via the Childcare Choices website to stimulate increased take-up by eligible families.
Students who are parents are eligible for the universal 15 hours of free early education which is available to all three and four year-olds, regardless of family circumstances. Students who work in addition to studying are eligible for the working parent entitlement if they meet the income requirements. If they meet the eligibility criteria, students can apply for the Childcare Grant and Parental Learning Allowance.
Additionally, the Care to Learn scheme provides funding for childcare to help young parents, defined as those aged under 20, continue in education after the birth of a child. The scheme provides funding for childcare while the young parent is engaged in a study programme and is not able to provide care for their child. It can also help the young parent with any additional travel costs involved in taking the child to the childcare provider.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential effects of long waiting lists of schools that are specialised for Special Educational Needs children on such children.
Answered by David Johnston
The department recognises the importance of accessing timely and effective support to improve the experiences of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and their families.
Nationally, 17% of pupils are identified with some form of SEN, three quarters of whom receive SEN support from their mainstream school, funded from its own resources. Local authorities must ensure there are sufficient good school places for all pupils, including special schools and those with SEND. They are statutorily required to keep the services and provision for children and young people with SEND under review (including its sufficiency), working with parents, young people, and providers.
To go further in supporting local authorities to meet this duty, in the SEND and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan, the department is committed to investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND, including announcing 41 new special free schools. This funding represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision.
The department has also collected new data from local authorities on available capacity in special schools, SEND units and resourced provision, along with corresponding forecasts of demand for these places. This data will help the department to more effectively support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duty to provide sufficient specialist places.
Through these reforms, the department aim to ensure that placements for children and young people with SEND are sufficient to meet need, allowing them to access the right support, in the right setting, at the right time.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase support for autistic (a) children and (b) young adults in the education system.
Answered by David Johnston
In the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, the department set out its vision to improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of need and timely access to support to meet those with SEND. The standards will clarify the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings, who is responsible for securing the support and from which budgets. This will give children and young people confidence and clarity on how their needs will be met. The department will establish a single national system that delivers for every child and young person with SEND, including autism, so that they enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes, and are well prepared for adulthood and employment.
In the immediate term, the system is being supported to deliver change and improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with SEND, including autism, by investing:
To help frontline professionals better support the needs of autistic children and young people in their settings, the department’s Universal Services contract offers autism awareness training and resources for the school and further education workforce. This aligns with the all-age autism strategy and its ambition to improve autistic children and young people’s access to education and support positive transitions into adulthood. Over 100,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training as part of a train the trainer model since the Universal Services programme launched in 2022.
Additionally, new practitioner standards are being developed to further help education staff support children and young people with SEND. The first three practitioner standards, including one on autism, will be published by the end of 2025.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 offering higher starting salaries to people entering the teaching profession with wider professional experience relevant to the subjects they teach.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions document (STPCD) sets out the four pay ranges for teachers in maintained schools in England. A teacher must be paid a salary within the minimum and maximum of the pay range as set out within the STPCD as the relevant body determines. A link to more information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-teachers-pay-and-conditions.
In the recent pay award, teachers and leaders in maintained schools received a pay award of 6.5%, the highest pay award for teachers in over thirty years. The Government also delivered its manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for teachers in all regions of the country, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London. The Department is committed to ensuring that teaching is a financially competitive career option within the graduate labour market.
The Department wants to ensure there are excellent teachers where they are needed most. The Department has announced a £196 million initial teacher training (ITT) financial incentives package for the 2024/25 ITT recruitment cycle, a £15 million increase on the last cycle. This includes increased bursaries worth up to £28,000 tax free and scholarships worth up to £30,000 tax free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. The Department is also providing a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 tax free for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the Department will be investing £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 tax free.
The Department continues to consider longer term pay priorities to attract and retain the best graduates whilst also delivering value for money on taxpayers’ investment in schools. The next remit to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) is due to be published shortly, which will include the strategic areas that the Department will consult the STRB on and look to implement in the next academic year.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has issued guidance to universities on pay deductions during marking boycotts.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Unlike some education sectors where the government has taken part in negotiations with trade unions, universities are autonomous. They are therefore responsible for the pay and pension provision of their staff. While government plays no formal role in such disputes, there is concern about the potential impact of the marking and assessment boycott. The government hopes all parties can reach an agreement that delivers good value for students, staff and universities, so further industrial action can be avoided.
On 22 June 2023, I met with Universities UK (UUK), the Russell Group and UCEA to better understand the impact of this boycott. I have also written to the Russell Group and UUK, encouraging them to continue to do everything within their powers to protect the interests of students during this phase of industrial action.
On 27 June 2023, I met with a number of higher education (HE) representative groups to discuss the marking and assessment boycott, including the mitigating actions HE institutions are taking.
On 12 June 2023, the Office for Students (OfS) wrote to institutions affected by the boycott to reiterate its expectations in relation to its conditions of registration. The OfS will continue to monitor this ongoing situation through their normal regulatory mechanisms.
My officials and I will continue to engage with the HE sector over the coming weeks to help better understand the boycott’s impact and the mitigating actions HE institutions are taking.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps she has taken to ensure that parents of deaf children have access to British Sign Language classes.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The department understands the great importance of British Sign Language (BSL) for bridging barriers to communication between hearing and deaf people. We also appreciate the vital need for families with deaf children to be able to access BSL courses, as early access to language is essential to help children learn and thrive.
Funding is available through the adult education budget (AEB) for qualifications in or focussing on BSL, up to and including Level 2. These qualifications include, for example, the Level 1 Award in BSL which allows learners to communicate in BSL on a range of topics that involve simple, everyday language use, thereby giving them the basic skills and confidence in production and reception of BSL. It will depend on an individual’s circumstances as to whether they are entitled to free provision or expected to meet part of the cost (through co-funding).
About 60% of the AEB has been devolved to Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Greater London Authority, who determine which provision to fund for learners who live in their areas. The Education and Skills Funding Agency provides the remaining funding for learners who live in non-devolved areas. Where community learning providers offer BSL courses, those providers are responsible for determining the course fees, including levels of fee remission.
For some BSL courses, Advanced Learner Loans (ALLs) are available, and parents can find more information about which qualifications are eligible on the GOV.UK website at: https://www.qualifications.education.gov.uk/Search. More general information about the provision of ALLs is available on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/advanced-learner-loan/.
For parents learning BSL on an AEB funded course, there is also additional support available. The AEB provides funding to colleges and providers to help adult learners overcome barriers preventing them from accessing learning. Providers have discretion to help learners meet costs such as transport, accommodation, books, equipment, and childcare. Learning support funding also helps colleges and training providers to meet the additional needs of learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities and the costs of reasonable adjustments, as set out in the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help (a) recruit and (b) retain special educational needs and disabilities specialist staff in schools.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
All teachers are teachers of Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers.
The number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 full-time equivalent teachers working in state-funded schools across the country. This is over 24,000 more than in 2010.
The department’s priority is to ensure that we continue to attract, retain, and develop highly skilled teachers. This is why we are taking action to improve teacher supply and quality by transforming the training and support we provide for teachers to attract more people to teaching and enable them to succeed.
The Teachers’ Standards sets clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils. All trainees who achieve Qualified Teacher Status must demonstrate that they can adapt teaching to respond to the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND.
To support all teachers in meeting these standards, the department is implementing a golden thread of high-quality teacher training reforms, which begins with initial teacher training and continues throughout their career progression.
Once teachers qualify and are employed in schools, headteachers use their professional judgement to identify any further training, including specific specialisms, for individual staff that is relevant to them, the school, and its pupils.
To teach a class of pupils with sensory impairments, a teacher is required to hold the mandatory qualification in sensory impairment approved by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education. The department has developed a new approval process to determine providers of Mandatory Qualifications in Sensory Impairments from the start of the 2023/24 academic year. Our aim is to ensure a steady supply of teachers of children with visual, hearing, and multi-sensory impairments, in both specialist and mainstream settings.
The school teachers’ pay and conditions document for 2022 sets out that an additional SEND allowance must be paid to teachers in a SEND post that requires a mandatory SEND qualification and involves teaching pupils with SEND. It is for schools to determine the specific amount, but this must be between £2,384 and £4,703 per annum.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing a statutory duty of care for higher education institutions on student (a) mental health, (b) safety and (c) well-being.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The mental health and wellbeing of young people is a high priority for this government. It is crucial that students get the effective mental health and wellbeing support they need to allow them to flourish at university.
The department is determined to provide students with the best mental health support possible at university. If creating a statutory duty of care in this space was the right way to achieve this, it would have the government’s full backing. However, this government believes creating a statutory duty of care for higher education providers is not the most effective way to improve outcomes for students.
Putting a duty of care on a statutory basis would not necessarily make a difference in practice to what providers have to do or the consequences if their actions mean a student’s wellbeing is harmed. This is because we consider that a duty of care already exists in common law as part of the law of negligence, and it is therefore not necessary to put it on a statutory basis.
There are also other relevant legal protections that already apply. Students with disabilities, including mental health conditions, are protected under the Equality Act 2010, which prohibits unlawful discrimination and harassment because of a disability. It also imposes a duty on providers to make reasonable adjustments where disabled students, including those with mental health conditions, would otherwise be put at a substantial disadvantage.
The government also believes that there are more effective solutions to improve outcomes for students in the near term. It is our view that the most effective way to support student mental health is through a two-pronged approach of funding vital and innovative services and working with mental health experts and the sector to implement best practice.
The department has made clear our ambition for all providers to back the University Mental Health Charter by 2026. We expect universities to create cultural change around mental health by embedding a whole-university approach to support, as advocated by the charity Student Minds, with student mental health and wellbeing considered across every aspect of university life.
The department has asked the Office for Students to distribute £15 million of funding to providers in 2023/24 to support student mental health, including providing additional support for transitions from school or college to university, with a particular focus on providing counselling services for students. This funding will also allow providers to continue to develop better partnerships with local NHS services to ensure that students are able to access support in a timely manner, and not slip between the gaps in university and NHS provision. Partnership working between HE providers and the NHS will improve the care of students experiencing poor mental health by ensuring a more joined up approach to the delivery of mental health support.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that climate change and sustainability are integrated throughout the primary and secondary school curriculum.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department will not be making any changes to the National Curriculum. Topics related to climate change and sustainability feature in the National Curricula for science, citizenship, and geography for primary and secondary schools.
An environmental science A level is available, and a Natural History GCSE will be introduced in 2025. The National Education Nature Park will also provide many educational opportunities for young people to take part in citizen science and biodiversity monitoring.