Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the adequacy of the funding available for adult education courses within (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England in each of the last three years.

We are continuing to invest in adult education for adults aged 19 and over through the adult education budget (AEB) (£1.34 billion in each of the 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 academic years). The AEB fully funds or co-funds skills provision for eligible adults aged 19 and above from pre-entry to level 3, to support adults to gain the skills they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.

Since the start of the 2019/20 academic year a proportion of the AEB has been devolved to a number of Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCA) including the West Midlands combined authority of which Coventry is a part, and the Greater London Authority (GLA) (approximately 50% of the budget was devolved in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years and 60% in the 2021/22 academic year). The MCAs/GLA are responsible for the provision of AEB-funded adult education for their residents and allocation of the AEB to providers.

The AEB academic year allocations for the West Midlands are as follows: