Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of fair access protocols on pupil referral units.

Fair access protocols exist to ensure that, outside the normal admissions round, unplaced children, especially the most vulnerable, are offered a place at a suitable school as quickly as possible and that no school is asked to take a disproportionate number of children with challenging behaviour or children excluded from other schools.

Fair access protocols do not have a direct impact on pupil referral units.

It is for local authorities, together with the schools in their area, to decide on which children should be eligible for consideration under their fair access protocol, which as a minimum must include children from pupil referral units who need to be integrated back into mainstream education.