Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many foreign languages have been available at (a) GCSE and (b) A-Level in each of the last 10 years; and how many such languages will be available at both levels of examination in each of the next three academic years.

Full historical data about all qualifications (including GCSEs and A levels in modern foreign languages) and the respective dates when they were available to pupils across England are available at http://www.education.gov.uk/section96/download.shtml.

The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) maintains a register of current, withdrawn and expired regulated qualifications and their operational start and end dates. The register includes qualifications available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is available at http://register.ofqual.gov.uk/.

19 modern foreign languages are available to students starting courses in September 2016. These are: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Modern Greek, Gujarati, Modern Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Panjabi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu. Classical languages - classical Greek, Latin and Biblical Hebrew - are also available.

We expect all of these, except Dutch, to continue to be available for students starting courses in September 2017 and September 2018.