Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to take steps to help promote the uptake of foundational apprenticeships in (a) Wolverhampton and (b) other areas with high levels of youth population.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity and to grow the economy. Too many young people are struggling to access high-quality opportunities and this government wants to ensure that more young people can undertake apprenticeships.
The department is developing new foundation apprenticeships to give more young people a foot in the door at the start of their working lives whilst supporting the pipeline of new talent that employers will need to drive economic growth.
Foundation apprenticeships will be a work-based offer in broad foundation level occupations that will support young people in key sectors where there are real vacancies and enable them to progress to more occupationally-specific apprenticeships or other vocational training in the sector. Progression routes will be a critical part of the offer. The department will set out more detail on foundation apprenticeships, including the sectors they will be available in, in due course.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that pupils who are considered hard to place under school admission requirements receive suitable school placements.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The school admissions code requires every local authority to have a Fair Access Protocol (FAP), agreed with the majority of the mainstream state-funded schools in its area, to ensure that unplaced and vulnerable children, and those who are having difficulty in securing a school place in-year, are allocated a school place as quickly as possible, minimising the time the child is out of school.
All admission authorities, including academies, are required to participate in the FAP for their area. This includes admitting pupils when asked to do so in accordance with the Protocol, even if the school is full. Where an admission authority fails to comply with the FAP, they may be directed to do so by the local authority, in the case of maintained schools, and currently by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education in the case of academies.
To further strengthen this framework, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill includes measures to allow local authorities to not only direct a maintained school to admit a child, but also to direct academies in the same way. It aims to streamline existing direction processes and provide a more robust safety net for vulnerable children, by giving local authorities the levers they need to secure school places for children more quickly and efficiently when the usual admissions processes, including the use of the FAP, have been exhausted.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support City Of Wolverhampton Council to provide home-to-school transport for young people.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department’s home-to-school travel policy aims to make sure no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. We know how challenging it currently is for local authorities to arrange home-to-school travel for all eligible children, and that the cost of doing so has increased in recent years. We are grateful for local authorities’ considerable efforts in ensuring eligible children can continue to get to school.
Most central government funding for home-to-school travel is provided through the Local Government Finance Settlement, which is administered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The government recognises the challenges local authorities are facing. That is why the Autumn Budget included the announcement of £1.3 billion of new grant funding in the 2025/26 financial year for local government to deliver core services. Together with local income from council tax and business rates, this will provide a real terms increase in core spending power of around 3.2%.
Most of the increase in the cost of home-to-school travel can be attributed to transport for children with special educational needs. This is largely due to an increase in the number of children with education, health and care plans and the number of those children who have to travel long distances to a school that can meet their needs. The department is committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools so fewer children need to travel long distances to a school that can meet their needs. This will reduce home-to-school travel costs for local authorities over time.
The department publishes statutory guidance to assist local authorities in meeting their home-to-school travel duties, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-guidance. Departmental officials host bi-monthly online meetings to which all local authority school travel officers are invited to share good practice and seek advice from one another and the department.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether SEND schools will be exempt from proposed changes to charitable business rate relief.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Local authorities will continue to fund places at independent special schools for pupils who need them due to their education, health and care (EHC) plan and will be able to reclaim VAT applied to fees.
The Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill provides that private schools that are charities that wholly or mainly provide education for pupils with an EHC plan remain eligible for charitable rates relief. In business rates, wholly or mainly generally means more than 50%. In practice, the government believes that this will ensure most special schools, which predominantly serve pupils with EHC plans, will not be affected by the measure.
Private schools that benefit from the existing rates exemption for properties that are wholly used for the training or welfare of disabled people will continue to do so.