Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to work with local authorities to support the expansion of over-subsidised rural primary schools.

Supporting local authorities to create school places where they are needed most is one of the Department’s top priorities. In the last Parliament we spent £5 billion on capital funding for new school places, more than double what was spent between 2007-2011. In this Parliament we have committed £7 billion in capital funding between 2015 and 2021 to help local authorities create places. Local authorities will want to consider the specific challenges facing schools in rural areas when planning new school places.