Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has plans to provide additional school places in (a) Stroud constituency and (b) Gloucestershire.

Supporting local authorities to create sufficient school places is one of the Government’s top priorities. Since 2015 we have committed £5.8 billion to deliver new school places, on top of our investment in the free schools programme.

Gloucestershire County Council has been allocated £85.1 million in basic need funding allocations for the period 2011 to 2020 to create new school places, and has created 3,339 places between 2010 and 2016.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-school-places-scorecards-2016

The Department has opened two free schools in Gloucestershire since 2010, and we have plans to open a further two free schools and one university technical college up to 2018. These schools are providing approximately 1451 additional school places in the area.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-open-schools-and-successful-applications