Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department plans to fund Staying Put beyond 2019-20.

The cross-government care leaver strategy ‘Keep on Caring’ was published in July 2016. This confirmed that funding for Staying Put would continue to be paid to local authorities until the end of the Spending Review period. It also confirmed that the funding would be up-rated by 2% each year to take inflation into account. The amount of funding is therefore £23.3 million for the period 2018 to 2019 and £23.77 million for the period 2019 to 2020. Funding beyond March 2020 will be subject to the outcome of the next Spending Review.