Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve education outcomes for care leavers.

This government is committed to ensuring that all care leavers are supported to succeed in education and achieve positive outcomes.

On 2 February, the department published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, our strategy for the reform of children’s social care. The strategy sets out the department’s plans to improve the education, employment, and training outcomes of children in care and care leavers. This includes, from 2027, a year-on-year narrowing of the gap in care leaver higher education participation rates compared to the general population.

The department will do this by increasing the support available in both higher and further education including the expansion of the Virtual School Head role to include care leavers up to 25 years old, the introduction of a gold standard accreditation scheme for higher education and further education institutions supporting care leavers, and further £24 million in pupil premium plus style between 2023 and 2025.