Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on ensuring that the timings of funding for secondary school provision for the development of strategic sites to support the delivery of housing infrastructure.

The Secretary of State engages regularly with ministerial colleagues, including the Secretary of State for Education, on a range of matters. In line with the practice of successive administrations, details of internal discussions are not routinely disclosed.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) recognises the importance of ensuring a sufficient choice of early years, school and post-16 places is available to meet the needs of existing and new communities. The Framework makes clear that local planning authorities should give great weight to the need to create, expand or alter early years, schools and post-16 facilities through the preparation of plans and decisions on applications, and work with early years, school and post-16 promoters, delivery partners and statutory bodies to identify and resolve key planning issues before applications are submitted.

Between 16 December 2025 and 10 March 2026, we consulted on a new NPPF. That consultation, which can be found on gov.uk here, included proposals relating to public service infrastructure, including secondary schools. The proposed policy on community facilities and public service infrastructure serving new development (HC3) sets out that planning conditions and obligations should be used to secure the timely delivery of community facilities and public service infrastructure required to serve new development, so that these facilities are available for use when the development (or an agreed proportion of the development) is first occupied or comes into use. We are currently analysing the feedback received to the consultation and will publish our response in due course.