Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to ensure sufficient school places in Kent; and what support she plans to provide to help children in (a) towns and (b) rural areas get to and from school by public transport.

The government wants to ensure all children have fair access to a school place, where they can achieve and thrive.

Kent County Council is responsible for ensuring there are sufficient school places for children in Kent. The department engages with local authorities, including Kent County Council, on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional primary and pre-16 secondary school places, and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities are experiencing difficulties, the department offers support and advice.

The department provides capital funding through the basic need grant to support local authorities to provide the needed mainstream school places for year groups from reception to year 11, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. Kent will receive just over £134 million to support the provision of new school places needed between May 2022 and September 2026, paid across the five financial years from 2021/22 to 2025/26. This takes their total funding allocated between 2011 and 2026 to just over £462 million. Local authorities’ allocations are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations.

Good local bus services are an essential part of prosperous and sustainable communities and provide access to schools and other services. This government has set out an action plan to deliver better bus services, grow passenger numbers and drive opportunity to under-served regions. As announced in the King’s Speech, the government will introduce the Buses Bill to put the power over local bus services in the hands of local leaders to ensure networks can meet the needs of the communities who rely on them. The government also plans to empower local transport authorities by reforming bus funding to give local leaders more control and flexibility over their funding so they can plan ahead to deliver their local transport priorities.