Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative estimate she has made of the number of specialist-school places (a) in Rushcliffe constituency and (b) nationally; and what plans she has to increase capacity of those places.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision sits with local authorities.
The requested data on state-funded special schools can be found in the annual School Capacity statistics publication here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-capacity/2023-24. This has been available since March 2025.
School level capacity data can be combined with information on constituency from ‘Get Information About Schools’ (GIAS), which can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-capacity/2023-24. For ease, data on the special school in Rushcliffe parliamentary constituency can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/1da3dffd-c9cd-4d3c-a168-08dde2cf2374.
Nationally, local authorities reported that there were 153,000 special school places in England as of 1 May 2024.
The department has now published allocations for £740 million in High Needs Provision Capital Allocations (HNPCA) for the 2025/26 financial year. The funding can be used to adapt schools to be more accessible for children with SEND, to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs and to create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs.
Nottinghamshire County Council has been allocated just below £14 million for the 2025/26 financial year. It is up to local authorities to make decisions about the places they create and to prioritise their funding to meet local needs.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the commencement of the socio-economic duty under the Equality Act 2010 on (a) school and (b) university admissions.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The government issued a call for evidence on equality law, which included commencing the socio-economic duty under the Equality Act 2010. This closed on 30 June 2025.
All mainstream state-funded schools are required to comply with relevant legislation and the statutory School Admissions Code. It is for a school’s admission authority to decide which oversubscription criteria to include in their arrangements. They must ensure that their arrangements will not disadvantage unfairly, either directly or indirectly, a child from a particular social or racial group, or a child with a disability or special educational needs.
We will support the aspiration of every person who meets the requirements and wants to go to university, regardless of their background, where they live and their personal circumstances.
Gaps in access, completion and outcomes between disadvantaged students and others at university are unacceptably large and stubborn.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to rural proof the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government is committed to ensuring that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill delivers for all children, including those living in rural areas.
The Bill includes measures designed to be delivered flexibly by local authorities, regional bodies and schools, enabling them to respond to local contexts. For example, provisions in the Bill to reform the children’s social care placement market include Regional Care Cooperatives which will assist local authorities by analysing the future accommodation needs for looked-after children across the region. This will support improved planning across geographic areas. We are also legislating on a package of measures which will help ensure that decisions on school place planning and admissions support the needs of communities, including rural communities.
The department is keen to learn what will support providers in rural areas to implement measures in the Bill. That is why schools in rural areas are included in the early adopter scheme for breakfast clubs. Home educating families and out-of-school education providers in rural areas will also have the opportunity to engage when we consult on the implementation of the children not in school measures.
Asked by: Ayoub Khan (Independent - Birmingham Perry Barr)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many asthma attacks that resulted in hospital admissions occurred in schools that (a) had emergency inhalers and (b) did not have emergency inhalers installed on their grounds.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the birth rate on school rolls.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The department’s National Pupil Projections are updated annually to take account of the latest population estimates and population projections published by the Office for National Statistics, which incorporate the latest birth rate trends. The department’s projections are published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/national-pupil-projections/2024.
Asked by: Noah Law (Labour - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps with local authorities to that ensure travel distance is taken into account when (a) calculating school catchment zones and (b) offering school places.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Admission arrangements are set and applied locally by a school’s admission authority, which for academies is the academy trust and for maintained schools is either the governing body or the local authority.
Admission authorities must determine the criteria that they will use to allocate places if a school receives more applications than it has places available. These must be fair, clear and transparent, and comply with the statutory School Admissions Code.
Admission authorities are already able to prioritise applications on the basis of distance to the school, including through the use of designated catchment areas. In setting such criterion, admission authorities must ensure they are reasonable and clearly defined, including making clear how distance from the child’s home to the school will be measured.
Where a school is not oversubscribed, every applicant must be offered a place.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on what date her Department first published a projection of the number of (a) Primary and (b) Secondary school places that would be needed in September 2024.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Estimates of the primary places needed to meet predicted demand for places in September 2024 were first published on 24 March 2022.
Estimates of the secondary places needed to meet predicted demand for places in September 2024 were first published on 28 March 2019.
The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of using non-deterministic AI in (a) marking, (b) admissions and (c) behaviour prediction on (i) schools and (ii) universities.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The department aims to use evidence-based technology to reduce the time teachers spend marking, planning and form filling so their drive, energy and passion is fully focused on delivering change for children. The department provided £2 million funding to support Oak National Academy to develop artificial intelligence (AI) tools for teachers. Oak has launched an AI assistant called Aila that helps teachers create personalised lesson plans and resources in minutes, saving them hours each week.
In August 2024, the department announced the Education Content Store, a joint pilot with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, aiming to make the underpinning content and data that are needed for great AI tools available to developers. In parallel, the department has launched innovation funding to encourage developers to make use of the content store and stimulate the market to create high-quality marking and feedback tools.
Universities are independent and autonomous bodies responsible for decisions such as admissions, course content, teaching and assessment. They are responsible for designing and implementing their own policies and approaches to the use of AI as well as for taking steps to detect and prevent any form of academic misconduct by students including the misuse of AI, as set out in the Office for Students’ regulatory framework.
Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure cross-border cooperation between local education authorities in the planning and allocation of school places.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is introducing new duties for mainstream state schools and local authorities to co-operate regarding school admissions and for state schools to co-operate with local authorities regarding place planning. Where co-operation breaks down or fails, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education will be able to intervene. This measure will help ensure that admissions and place planning decisions account for local communities’ needs.
Local authorities, academy trusts and local partners should work together on place planning. We expect local authorities to share their place planning strategy and data with local partners, which can include neighbouring local authorities.
Local authorities are required to ensure that their scheme to co-ordinate admission arrangements for the normal admissions round considers the admission of pupils in different local authority areas where that is what parents wish. Where possible their scheme of coordination should be compatible with the coordination schemes of neighbouring authorities. Where local authorities receive cross border applications, we expect the authorities to work together to ensure families receive timely decisions on national offer day, at the highest preference school that can offer the child a place.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with Surrey County Council on providing clear guidance for feeder school arrangements for secondary schools in the Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Admission arrangements are set and applied locally. Provided they are lawful and comply with the school admissions code, it is for the school’s admission authority to decide what admissions criteria to set, and how they are applied. The admission authority for a community or voluntary controlled school is the local authority. For a foundation or voluntary aided school, it is the governing body, and for academy schools including free schools, it is the academy trust.
The code enables admission authorities to give priority to children attending named feeder schools, but are prohibited from naming fee-paying independent schools as feeder schools. The selection of a feeder school or schools as an oversubscription criterion must be transparent and made on reasonable grounds.
Once a school’s admission arrangements have been determined, anyone who believes they are unfair or unlawful may submit an objection to the Schools Adjudicator. Where the Adjudicator finds that a school’s admission arrangements are unlawful, they must revise their admission arrangements to give effect to the Adjudicator’s decision, which is binding and enforceable by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education.