Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2016 to the hon. Member for St Albans to Question 30489, on schools: admissions, if she will commission research on the effect on additional school places of inward migration from (a) EU and (b) non-EU countries.

As set out in the written response to PQ 30489, supporting local authorities in their responsibility to ensure sufficient school places remains one of this Government’s top priorities. The basic need capital funding we allocate to local authorities to create new school places is based on their own data on school capacity and future pupil forecasts. Any increase in need for places should be reflected in the local authority’s final basic need allocation. We allocate basic need funding three years ahead to give local authorities time to plan and deliver the new places needed in their area.

The Government has committed to investing £7 billion in new school places up to 2021, which, when added to our investment in the free schools programme, will help to create 600,000 new places.

Beyond the information already provided to the Department by local authorities, we do not plan to commission further research on the effect of inward migration on the need for school places.