Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact on the NHS workforce of financial pressures faced by higher education institutions providing healthcare education.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made.
We work closely with the Department for Education on a wide range of matters, including healthcare education and training funding. Matters relating to the income of universities are the responsibility of the Department for Education.
Latest figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) for 2025 show that acceptances to undergraduate nursing and midwifery courses at English providers have increased by 1% when compared to the same point last year, and by 5% compared to pre-pandemic numbers (2019). These are not final numbers. We are awaiting end of cycle data to be published by UCAS later this year to confirm final numbers.
The total number of publicly funded students that can start medical courses each year is limited and is set by the Government. Each medical school is issued with an expected maximum intake for the year. The Office for Students runs an annual data survey that monitors provider recruitment against these targets. In the five most recent years for which final data is available, universities have met this limit, with medicine remaining a competitive course.
The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the number of early years providers in England that may increase their capacity through the use of free flow outdoor space under the proposed changes to the early years foundation stage statutory framework.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The expansion of funded childcare is continuing to support families. The department is exploring new ways to help providers offer more high-quality childcare places for working families, which includes access to outdoor space. Therefore, the department has launched a consultation on whether to introduce flexibility into the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework that will allow free-flow outdoor space to be included in the indoor space requirements, with a possible cap on the number of additional places that can be offered. The consultation can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/space-requirements-in-early-years-childcare-settings-in-england. The EYFS framework can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2.
The department’s ‘Pulse surveys of childcare and early years providers’, which were published April 2024, found strong support for these proposals with the majority of providers, with 70 per cent (7 in 10), saying they would be likely to use these flexibilities. The survey results can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pulse-surveys-of-childcare-and-early-years-providers. The results of the consultation, and the department’s response, are expected to be published in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that early education and care providers are adequately supported to provide places for 70,000 more children by autumn 2025.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Giving children the best start in life is key to the government’s Opportunity Mission. Good parenting and high quality early education provide the foundation for children to achieve and thrive. This government is determined to ensure that parents have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and childcare.
The department is rolling out more government-funded childcare entitlements to help millions of families, working hand in hand with the early years sector to build a system that works for them, parents and, above all, children. This includes delivering 3,000 new and expanded school based nurseries to make high quality childcare accessible and available. As a first step, primary schools can now apply for up to £150,000 of £15 million capital funding, with the first stage of the plan set to support up to 300 new or expanded nurseries across England. High quality, school-based nursery provision is popular with parents, especially families with multiple children. It can help schools upgrade spare space whilst also providing early support to children and families, supporting their transition into primary school. School-based nursery settings have proportionally higher qualified staff and see lower staff turnover, providing more consistency of care for children. Proportionally, school-based nurseries also look after more children with special educational needs and disabilities and offer a higher proportion of places in the most deprived areas.
In 2024/25, early years providers are set to benefit from over £2 billion extra investment compared to last year, to support the rollout of 30 hours of government-funded early education from next September, rising in 2027/28 to over £4.1 billion. As announced in the Autumn Budget 2024, we expect to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements in 2025/26, which is around a 30% increase compared to 2024/25, as we continue to deliver the expansion to eligible working parents of children aged from nine months.
The planned September 2025 childcare rollout of 30 funded hours per week will go ahead, but there will be challenges, including providers securing enough staff and places to meet demand, with the capacity needed varying across the country. The department is supporting the sector to attract talented staff and childminders to join the workforce by creating conditions for improved recruitment. We are urging the public to ‘do something BIG’ and start a career working with small children through our national recruitment campaign. Our dedicated website also helps people find out more about gaining qualifications and search for existing job vacancies. In 20 local authorities, we are piloting initiatives to understand whether £1,000 in financial incentives will boost recruitment in early years alongside a childminder start-up grant scheme.
Skills Bootcamps for the early years are available and lead to an accelerated apprenticeship, and we are funding Early Years Initial Teacher Training as a route for new and existing staff to gain Early Years Teacher Status. To support childminders to join and stay in the profession, we have implemented new flexibilities to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises.
We are working closely with local areas and the early years sector to do everything we can to ensure there are enough places and the sector has the workforce it needs to provide those places and to bridge local gaps ahead of September 2025.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative assessment he has made of (a) availability of pre-school places and (b) demand for those places.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Local authorities are responsible for stewardship of local childcare markets. The department continues to work in close partnership with local authorities to monitor sufficiency of provision for children and parents. We have not seen a significant number of parents unable to secure a childcare place, this term or since early year settings re-opened fully on 1 June 2020. Where parents have been unable to temporarily secure a childcare place, for example due to their usual setting being temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, this has been able to be quickly resolved locally. Local authorities are not reporting any significant sufficiency issues.
Our official data collection has monitored attendance in early years settings throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, and can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak. Additionally, Ipsos MORI conducted wave 8 of our parent poll, ‘Childcare use, perceived impact on child development, and information on working from home for families of 0-4 year-olds during COVID-19’ in March 2021, with a representative sample of 1,000 parents of children aged 0-4 in England. The data has been weighted to match the population profile of parents of children aged 0-4 in England by region, social grade and the age of the selected child. Key points from the findings include:
The report can be accessed via this link: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/childcare-use-perceived-impact-child-development-and-information-working-home-families-0-4-year.
Wave 9 of the parent poll, which covers similar territory, was conducted by Ipsos MORI in July 2021. The government intends to publish this evidence as soon as possible. The government continues to work in partnership with local authorities and stakeholders to monitor sufficiency of early education and childcare provision for parents and children.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the impact on children of different local authority policies on school age start dates; and what he plans he has to amend the school admissions code to enable summer-born children to start reception at age five where that is what their parents want.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities do not set policies on school age start dates. Compulsory school age is the start of the term following a child’s fifth birthday. Admission authorities must provide for the admission of children in the September following their fourth birthday, but it is for parents to decide whether to send their child to school before compulsory school age.
For summer born children this means that they do not need to start school until the September after their fifth birthday. It is then the decision of the admission authority whether to admit the child to Year 1 or, at the parents' request, to Reception.
In May, the Department published the results of our latest research surveys of local authorities and parents into the delayed admission of summer born children to school.
It remains our intention to legislate, when an opportunity becomes available, so that summer born children can automatically be admitted to a Reception class, where that is what their parents want, and remain with that cohort throughout their education.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the ability of the podiatry workforce to meet demand for services over the next (a) five and (b) 10 years.
Answered by Jo Churchill
It is the responsibility of individual National Health Service trusts to have staffing arrangements in place that deliver safe and effective care. This includes recruiting the staff needed to support these levels and meet local needs.
The Government is committed to ensuring that the NHS has the workforce it needs to deliver high quality care. As part of the new funding package for healthcare students, non-repayable, training grants of at least £5,000 per academic year are available to eligible new and continuing pre-registration podiatry students, studying at English universities. There is an additional specialist subject grant of £1,000 to eligible new students who choose to study in shortage professions, including podiatry.
There has been significant investment both via Health Education England, NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Office for Students over the last three years in a number of specific programmes of work involving the College of Podiatry, including television and social media campaigns to stimulate interest in podiatry careers both in school leavers and those seeking a second career.
The latest data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service shows there were 275 acceptances on podiatry courses in England in 2020, an increase of 53% compared to 2019.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much of his Department’s capital departmental expenditure limit was spent on creating new early years places in each financial year since 2010-11; and how many new places were created as a result of that spending.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In 2012-13, the Department announced £100 million of capital allocations for local authorities to support implementation of early years education for two-year olds from lower income families. Local authorities were responsible for distributing this capital investment and so the Department does not hold information on the number of places created by this funding.
The Department allocated £100 million over 2016-17 and 2017-18 to local authorities to support successful bids to the Early Years Capital Fund (EYCF). The Department regularly assesses the progress of these projects and will publish the outcomes in due course when all projects have completed. Information detailing the outcomes from the EYCF bidding round will be published at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/early-years-capital-fund-2017.
In July 2019, the Department announced the outcome of applications to the School Nurseries Capital Fund. This fund, of nearly £24 million for 69 projects, will help to create new high-quality school-based nursery places for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds. The profiling of this spend will depend on the progress of individual projects. The full list of successful projects for this fund can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-nurseries-capital-fund-list-of-application-outcomes.
The Department will publish the outcomes in due course when all projects have completed.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of looked-after children achieved five GCSEs graded A - C in each year for the last 10 years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The number and percentage of looked-after children who achieved 5 or more GCSEs at grades A*-C (or equivalent) in each year are shown in the table. Looked-after children are defined as those looked after continuously for at least 12 months as at 31 March of the year in which key stage 4 assessments were taken.
A large percentage (63%) of looked-after children enter care due to abuse or neglect. They often have disrupted experience of education and this pre-care experience can have a significant impact on their attainment. Looked-after children are almost 4 times more likely to have a special educational need than all children and are almost 10 times more likely to have a statement and education, health and care plan than all children. There is also a disproportionately high prevalence of social, emotional and mental health difficulties among looked-after children. We recognise these needs as well as the fact that looked-after children have top priority in school admissions and we expect them to be placed in good or outstanding schools.
Schools must appoint a designated teacher for looked-after children and local authorities must have a virtual school head who is accountable for the education attainment of all the children looked after by the authority. We have introduced the Pupil Premium Plus for looked-after children (£2300 per pupil), which is managed by the school head teacher, to deliver the outcomes in each looked-after child’s personal education plan.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked-after children achieved five GCSEs graded A - C in each year for the last 10 years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The number and percentage of looked-after children who achieved 5 or more GCSEs at grades A*-C (or equivalent) in each year are shown in the table. Looked-after children are defined as those looked after continuously for at least 12 months as at 31 March of the year in which key stage 4 assessments were taken.
A large percentage (63%) of looked-after children enter care due to abuse or neglect. They often have disrupted experience of education and this pre-care experience can have a significant impact on their attainment. Looked-after children are almost 4 times more likely to have a special educational need than all children and are almost 10 times more likely to have a statement and education, health and care plan than all children. There is also a disproportionately high prevalence of social, emotional and mental health difficulties among looked-after children. We recognise these needs as well as the fact that looked-after children have top priority in school admissions and we expect them to be placed in good or outstanding schools.
Schools must appoint a designated teacher for looked-after children and local authorities must have a virtual school head who is accountable for the education attainment of all the children looked after by the authority. We have introduced the Pupil Premium Plus for looked-after children (£2300 per pupil), which is managed by the school head teacher, to deliver the outcomes in each looked-after child’s personal education plan.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when the review on allowing schools to admit summer-born children to reception class at the age of five will be published.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is concerned that some summer born children may be missing the reception year at school. The Department remains committed to amending school admissions policy so that summer born children can be admitted to a reception class aged 5, where parents believe this to be in the best interests of their child. The Department is continuing to review the implications of any changes.
It is encouraging that many admission authorities are now more responsive to requests for delayed entry to the reception year. Data from a survey of local authorities, published by the Department in May 2018, indicated that requests to delay entry are agreed in around 75% of cases. This data is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/707417/Delayed_school_admissions_for_summer-born_pupils.pdf.