Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps are being taken to increase the numbers of primary and secondary school places in Dartford.

Supporting local authorities to ensure sufficient school places in their area is one of this Government’s top priorities. That’s why we’ve committed to investing £7 billion in new school places up to 2021, which along with our investment in the free schools programme we expect to deliver 600,000 new places.

Kent County Council, which is responsible for school places in Dartford, received £115 million in basic need funding between 2011 and 2015, helping to create nearly 17,000 new places between 2010 and 2015. Of these, around 8,700 were primary places and around 8,200 were secondary. Kent has also been allocated £144 million to create the additional places required by September 2019.