Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department have attended (i) trilogues, (ii) meetings of the Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the EU and (iii) other relevant meetings to determine the response of the Council of Ministers to the proposed Erasmus regulation for 2021-27 adopted by the European Parliament on 28 March 2019; and what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the position taken by the Council to date.

Ministers and officials do not attend trilogues as these are held between the Presidency, the Commission and the representatives from the European Parliament’s CULT committee.

As stated in my answer of 21 January 2020 to Questions 4479, 4480 and 4481, the proposed regulations for the next 2021-27 Erasmus+ programme are still being discussed in the EU and have yet to be finalised.

The government highly values international exchange and cooperation in education and training and, as noted in the Political Declaration, the UK is open to participation in certain EU programmes, such as the next Erasmus+ programme (2021-27), if it is in our interest to do so. Future participation in EU programmes will be a subject of our negotiations on the future UK-EU relationship.