Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of good school places in England.

Delivering good quality school places is a top priority for this Government. The Department has committed £7 billion between 2015 and 2021 to deliver new school places, which is on top of investment in the free schools programme. The Department is on track to create one million places this decade, the largest increase in school capacity in at least two generations.

As of March 2019, there are 1.9 million more children in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ schools compared to 2010. This represents 85% of children compared to just 66% in 2010 - and that is in part down to the Department’s reforms.

As of 14 June 2019, there are 446 open free schools, 50 University Technical Colleges and 27 studio schools. These will provide over 290,000 places when at capacity. The Department has approved a further 286 applications (including one UTC) from groups it is now working with to establish schools. In addition, in March 2019, the Department announced that it will run competitions in successful local authority areas to open and run 37 new special and two new alternative provision free schools.