Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the major telecoms companies have zero-rated educational websites other than Hungry Little Minds; and what steps he has taken to persuade those companies to do so.

The major telecoms companies have zero-rated the Hungry Little Minds website. This means that users will not incur data charges when accessing this website, except where the content is hosted on a third party site (e.g. an embedded Youtube video). Zero-rating has been put in place on an operator-by-operator basis. Zero rating is a helpful way to provide families with support to access critical resources where the majority of content is held on one website.

To further support disadvantaged households who rely on a mobile internet connection, the Department is working with mobile network operators to help ensure that disadvantaged and vulnerable families have the data they need to access online educational resources while COVID-19 requires children to learn from home.

In partnership with mobile network operators, the Department is providing a service for schools if they experience disruption to face-to-face education and have identified disadvantaged families who would benefit from free mobile data uplifts to engage in remote education. More providers will be supporting the service before the end of the year and we continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.