Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to fund a new (a) primary and (b) secondary school to serve Wynyard within Stockton on Tees Borough.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. The department allocates capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities provide school places, based on their own forecast data.

Local authorities can use Basic Need funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools. Where a local authority thinks there is a demographic need for a new school in its area, it must seek proposals to establish an academy. This is known as the free school presumption process.

Stockton-on-Tees was allocated just under £61.6 million of basic need grant funding between 2011 and 2021. It has not been allocated funding in subsequent allocations because its data indicates need for mainstream places up to September 2025 had already been funded in previous years.

The department also funds new schools through the central free schools route. Under this process the department has recently approved a new primary school in Hartlepool that will also serve the Wynyard area of Stockton-on-Tees.