Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 24 January 2024 to Question 9921 on Teachers: Training, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of trends in the cost of living on teachers in training.

The government recognises that cost of living pressures impact trainee teachers but has taken steps to increase the financial support available. All trainee teachers on tuition fee-funded initial teacher training (ITT) routes can apply for a tuition fee loan and a partially means-tested loan for living costs. Additional means-tested student finance is also available depending on individual circumstances, such as the Childcare Grant for students with child dependants.

The government has continued to increase maximum loans, grants for living and other costs each year. Maximum support has been increased by 2.8% for the current 2023/24 academic year, with a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25. The highest levels of support are targeted at students from the lowest-income families.

The department has also frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years to deliver better value for students and to keep the cost of higher education under control. By the 2024/25 academic year, maximum fees will have been frozen for 7 years.

The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students, including disadvantaged students.

The department is now making a further £10 million of one-off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.

The department announced an ITT financial incentives package worth up to £196 million for the 2024/25 ITT recruitment cycle, a £15 million increase on the last cycle. This includes bursaries worth up to £28,000 tax-free and scholarships worth up £30,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.

Last year, the department accepted in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and leaders. This included an increase to the unqualified teacher pay range for salaried trainee teachers and a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions of the country, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London.