Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of (a) how widespread social exclusion is in rural areas and (b) the effect of his Department’s policies on social exclusion in rural areas.

The department aims to provide every child and young person with world-class education, training and care regardless of their background or where they come from.

Opportunity Areas (OAs) in England are at the heart of our work to learn what works best in areas with entrenched social mobility barriers so that we can roll out successful approaches across the country. We chose these 12 areas to make sure that there was a geographical spread, allowing us to test approaches in a rural context as well as in urban and coastal locations.

Outside of the work undertaken in OAs, the department has made no assessment of social exclusion in rural areas. However, we are aware of the contribution that schools make to rural communities, which is why we support the presumption against the closure of rural schools in England.