Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the number of schools implementing blanket policies against the pay portability of teachers returning after a career break.

Our pay reforms have given schools greater flexibility to develop pay policies that are tailored to their needs. That includes the freedom to pay what they consider to be the appropriate rate for the skills that someone brings and the challenges of the job rather than having to pay a teacher what they had previously been paid at another school. We do not monitor how schools are using their new flexibilities but would expect schools to be actively considering their approach to pay portability within the pay freedoms now available to them.