Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the number of school places in (a) London and (b) England.

It is the Government’s ambition to build a country that works for everyone. The Schools that work for everyone consultation sets out proposals to support the Government’s commitment to increase the supply of good new school places.

Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area. Basic need funding is allocated to local authorities to help them to create new school places.

The Coalition Government doubled basic need funding to £5 billion between 2011 and 2015, helping to create nearly 600,000 additional school places. The Government has already committed £7 billion for school places in England, which along with our investment in 500 new free schools we expect to deliver 600,000 new places by 2021.

London received almost £2 billion in basic need funding between 2011 and 2015 and has been allocated over £1 billion for 2015-19. This funding has helped to create 200,000 school places in London between 2010 and 2015, with many more expected to be delivered.