Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many care leavers there were in (a) West Sussex and (b) Mid Sussex constituencies in 2015-16; and how many of those care leavers were not in education, employment or training at that time.

I am sorry, but the Department does not hold data on the parliamentary constituency of care leavers, so the information requested is not available for Mid Sussex constituency. Data on the activity of care leavers is only available for those aged up to and including 21 years.

The number of care leavers aged 19 to 21 years old in West Sussex in 2015-16 was 305, of which 125 were not in education, employment or training.

For care leavers aged 17 to 18 years old, of the 135 who were in West Sussex, 50 were not in education, employment or training. Information on care leavers aged 17 and 18 years old was collected for the first time for the year ending 31 March 2016 and is published as experimental statistics.

These figures were published in 2016 in the statistical release “Children looked after in England including adoption: 2015 to 2016 (SFR 41/2016)”, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2015-to-2016.