Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with (a) City of Bristol, (b) Kingston upon Thames, (c) Richmond upon Thames, (d) Salford and (e) Surrey local authorities on capital funding for additional secondary school places at key stages 3 and 4.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. The department engages with local authorities, including those mentioned, on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional primary and pre-16 secondary school places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities are experiencing difficulties, the department offers support and advice.

The department provides capital funding through the basic need grant to support local authorities to provide mainstream school places needed for year groups from reception to year 11, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. Nearly £1.5 billion of allocations have been confirmed to support local authorities to create school places needed over the current and next two academic years. Local authorities’ allocations are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations.