Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department shares national pupil data with the Home Office for purposes related to immigration; and how many records have been shared by his Department since May 2010.

Where the police or Home Office have clear evidence that a child may be at risk or evidence of criminal activity, including illegal immigration, limited data including a pupil’s address and school details may be requested from the National Pupil Database. It is right that we share this data if it helps to keep a child safe from harm or to disrupt a crime.

The basis for sharing information is set out in a Memorandum of Understanding between the two departments. This sharing does not include the pupil nationality and country of birth data previously collected by the Department for research purposes.

The department publishes information about all of its data sharing as part of its commitment to transparency. This publication (last updated on 13 December 2018) can be found on GOV.UK at the link below: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfe-external-data-shares.