Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Department plans to increase funding for ESOL to ensure that all refugees can access a minimum of eight hours a week of formal accredited English language teaching for their first two years in the UK.

The government recognises that learning English is essential to enabling refugees to rebuild their lives. The department supports adults in England through the Adult Education Budget (AEB) to secure the English language skills that they need. The Home Office and the Department for Education have also provided £10 million to enable refugees resettled through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme to access additional classes. The government has committed to developing a new strategy for English for speakers of other languages in 2019. Funding for all programmes beyond 2019/20, including any potential funding for this strategy, will be set during the upcoming Spending Review.