Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will (a) extend and (b) increase bursaries and salary uplifts for shortage subject teachers in schools with high proportions of pupils from low income backgrounds.

For the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic years, the department is offering Targeted Retention Incentive payments worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. These payments are offered to teachers in the most disadvantaged 50% of schools nationally, based on the proportion of pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium. This supports the recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most. It also represents a doubling of the payments of up to £3,000 after tax that were offered in the same schools prior to the 2024/25 academic year.

In addition, the department announced an initial teacher training (ITT) financial incentives package worth £233 million for trainee teachers in the 2025/26 academic year, a £37 million increase on the last cycle. This includes bursaries worth up to £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth up to £31,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. It also includes salary grants of up to £29,000 in the same subjects so schools, including those in disadvantaged areas, can recruit trainee teachers on salaried routes including the Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship.