Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the cost of requiring all schools to convert to academies; and if she will make a statement.

Taking the Spending Review and last month’s Budget together, we have set aside the funding to support a high quality, academised school system. We have over £500m available in this Parliament to build capacity in the system – including recruiting excellent sponsors and encouraging the development of strong multi-academy trusts.

The precise costs will depend on how schools individually and collectively come forward with academy proposals. There will, however, be a range of help available to support schools to become academies and secure the associated benefits.