Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will increase the level of funding for sixth form students to at least £4,760 per year.

The government has already announced an additional £291 million in 16 to 19 education in 2021 to 2022. This is in addition to the £400 million awarded in the 2019 Spending Review which was the biggest injection of new money into 16 to 19 education in a single year since 2010. This has allowed us to raise the base rate of funding for all providers of 16 to 19 education, including school sixth forms and sixth-form colleges, for the first time since the current funding system was introduced in 2013, from £4,000 in each academic year up to 2019/20, to £4,188 in academic years 2020/21 and 2021/22. Over and above this base rate figure, the government has recently made further funding increases targeted on high value and high-cost programmes as well as providing additional funding to support those on level 3 programmes to continue to study English and maths where needed. As a result, the average total programme funding per 16-19 student has increased more significantly than the base rate, from £4,516 in 2019/20 published allocations to £4,958 in 2020/21 published allocations[1].

We are continuing to increase our investment in T Levels and will allocate up to an extra half a billion pounds a year to deliver these new programmes once they are fully rolled out. We are also investing in the further education workforce with a £20 million increase in funding in 2021-22 when compared to 2020-21, allowing us to deliver greater support – including opportunities to gain valuable industry experience through our Workforce Industry Exchange Programme. The government has also committed £83 million capital funding in the 2021-22 financial year to ensure that eligible post-16 providers can accommodate the expected demographic increase in 16 to 19-year-olds. More details about this funding and eligibility for the funding will be announced in due course and we will keep the policy under review.

We will of course continue to look at the needs of 16 to 19 education in future Spending Reviews.

[1] This calculation only includes institutions that have students receiving total programme funding. Some institutions receive only high needs funding – their students are not included in this calculation. In addition, the Condition of Funding adjustment for English and maths and the Advanced Maths Premium have been incorporated in total programme funding in 2019/20 to make this consistent with the definition in 2020/21.