Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the reasons for trends in the number of new children’s residential homes that have been established in Lancashire.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is the decision of children’s homes providers to decide on the location and type of building that they wish to use to accommodate children in care. As part of Ofsted’s registration process, children’s homes providers are required to undertake a location assessment, which must show the steps that have been taken to ensure the location is safe and promotes positive opportunities for children. The department recognises the need to ensure there are the right children’s homes in the right places.
As announced in the Spring Budget 2023, the department is continuing to invest in the children’s homes market to provide high quality, safe homes for some of the most vulnerable children and young people in all nine regions of England.
In addition to taking forward the recommendations made by the Care Review and the Competition and Markets Authority, the department is also developing proposals on what more can be done to combat profiteering, bring down costs and create a more sustainable market for residential placements.
The department is developing options regarding the planning of children’s homes and thanks Fylde Council colleagues for their continued engagement in this process.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) unaccompanied children and (b) other asylum seekers can access legal aid services in Wales.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) monitors supply across its legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis and, where demand is greater than the available supply, takes action within its operational powers to secure additional provision to ensure the continuity of legal aid-funded services. The LAA is satisfied that there is adequate provision of services in Wales across all categories of legal aid.
Once implemented, individuals who receive a removal notice under the Illegal Migration Act (IMA) will have access to free legal advice in relation to the removal notice.
We are setting fees for IMA work at 15% above the usual hourly rate to help augment capacity so we can meet the anticipated increase in demand for legal aid advice.
We have taken a number of steps to help increase access to legal aid for immigration and asylum cases across England and Wales. For example, we are providing up to £1.4m of funding in 2024 for accreditation and reaccreditation of senior caseworkers to conduct immigration and asylum legal aid work.
In 2019, we brought non-asylum immigration and citizenship matters into scope for under 18s who are not in the care of a parent, guardian, or legal authority. This means, for example, that a separated migrant child making an application for entry clearance, leave to enter, or to remain in the United Kingdom, or an application for registration as a British citizen or as a British subject, or for registration as a British overseas territories citizen or a British Overseas citizen is now entitled to legal aid, subject to the means and merits tests.
The ongoing Review of Civil Legal Aid is considering the broader economic context of the civil legal aid market as a whole, including for immigration cases, so that it can operate sustainably in the long-term. we are due to publish a Green Paper in July 2024.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have made an assessment of the impact of emerging artificial intelligence capacities on the necessity for foreign language learning.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Studying a language can be extremely rewarding and exciting for children and young people. It can provide insight into other cultures and open the door to travel and employment opportunities. Whilst Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be useful in enhancing the experience of learning a language, and this should be explored further, it should not be seen as a replacement.
The department wants to capitalise on the opportunities technology like AI presents for education, as well as addressing its risks and challenges. Responses to the call for evidence on generative AI in education highlighted the potential for this technology in generating language exercises and conversational prompts, for example. Language learning was one of the use cases tested as part of the department's Generative AI Hackathon project. The report of this project is due to be published shortly. The most important thing for a high-quality education is having a human expert teacher in the classroom. The emergence of this technology does not change that.
Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what progress his Department has made on making an assessment of the potential merits of introducing new planning rules on Material Changes of Use and Permitted Development for children’s residential homes.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The joint ministerial statement on planning for children’s homes jointly published in May 2023 by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Department for Education remains the most up to date government policy on this matter. I am aware of the Hon Member’s concerns on this issue, and if he has more information to share we would be happy to receive it.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of free school meals on educational attainment.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department has not recently made a formal assessment of the links between free school meals and educational outcomes.
Nutritious food plays an important role in the development of healthy eating habits and ensures that pupils can concentrate and learn. That is why the department spends over £1 billion annually providing free meals to the greatest ever proportion of school children. Over one third of children are now eligible for free school meals, compared to one in six in 2010. This increase has been driven by the introduction of Universal Infant Free School Meals in 2014, as well as the department’s generous Universal Credit transitional protections put in place in 2018.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the opportunities for children to learn to play a musical instrument while at school.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government has a long standing commitment to ensure that high quality music education is not the preserve of the wealthy, but the entitlement of every single child, and that this is reflected in the government’s refreshed National plan for music education, which was published in 2022. This plan sets out the department’s strategy up to 2030 and its vision to enable all children and young people to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music together, as well as to have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents, including professionally.
As part of the plan, schools are expected to teach music for at least one hour a week from Key Stages 1 to 3, to provide access to singing and instrument lessons and to offer a range of music experiences, such as music events and trips to professional concerts. The network of Music Hubs has a vital role to play in supporting schools to deliver this. Working together, schools and Music Hubs can ensure children have access to all the benefits of a wider musical education through instrumental lessons, loans and ensembles, as well as offering clear and affordable progression routes and continuing professional development to teachers around music.
The government values the many achievements that the existing Music Hub network has made since 2012, including the work they now do with around 90% of all schools. This is why the department has invested around £380 million of funding in Music Hubs between 2016 and 2021 to ensure all children, whatever their background, have access to a high quality music education. Since 2021, the department has continued to provide £79 million a year for Music Hubs, on average around 40% of their income, with the remaining funding coming mainly from parents and schools.
Further to this, as part of the plan published in 2022, the government announced a £25 million capital fund for musical instruments, which will be distributed across all Music Hubs from September 2024. This will allow schools and Music Hubs to continue to work together to ensure more children and young people have access to musical instruments, as well as access to a high quality music education and to develop their musical interests and potential.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with the Department for Education in Northern Ireland on special educational needs training for teachers.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Education is a devolved matter and therefore England and Northern Ireland have different systems for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The department engages with the Department of Education in Northern Ireland on a range of areas, including wider teacher continued professional development, sharing information about developments and good practice.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of no recourse to public funds on (a) children from black and ethnic minority backgrounds and (b) children with British citizenship who have parents that were born outside the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office is committed to the continuous review of the NRPF policy and officials are working with a wide range of stakeholders, including other government departments, the devolved administrations, and third sector organisations to develop a greater understanding of how children are directly and indirectly affected by parents / carers being subject to an NRPF condition.
The Government published an overarching Equality Impact Assessment on the Compliant Environment measures, of which the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) is part. The impact of the policy on children has been considered as part of this assessment: Compliant environment: overarching equality impact assessment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the proposed increase in early years childcare provision could lead to a widening of the attainment gap.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
The most recent Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results in 2022/23 found 67.2% of children had a good level of development, which is an increase of around 2 percentage points compared to the previous year. Additionally, the percentage of disadvantaged children with a good level of development had increased by 2.5 percentage points and the gap with their peers had narrowed by at least 0.5 percentage points.
The department has commissioned an independent evaluation of the childcare entitlements expansion, which will explore the effects of the expansion on children’s development. Results will be made available on GOV.UK in due course. This is in addition to the existing significant programme of monitoring that includes pulse surveys with early years providers, polling with parents and annual large-scale surveys of providers and parents. The department will also continue to use the existing body of evidence from studies such as the Study of Early Education and Development and Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education to inform its work.
Asked by: Lord Laming (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to improve the education of children in care.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to ensuring that looked-after children are supported to succeed in education and achieve positive outcomes. Every local authority must appoint a virtual school head (VSH), who has a statutory duty to promote the educational attainment of all children in their care. All maintained schools and academies must appoint a designated teacher to act as a source of advice and expertise about the needs of the looked-after children on the school’s roll. Looked-after children also have top priority in school admissions and attract pupil premium plus funding of £2,570 per child, up to age 16. This is managed by the VSH, who works with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in the child’s Personal Education Plan.
In February 2023, the department announced the national rollout of £24 million of pupil premium plus style funding to looked-after children and care leavers at post-16 for the next two years, from 2023/24. This funding, which builds on an initial £8 million pilot that launched in October 2021, gives VHSs the financial levers to positively impact the educational outcomes of looked-after children and care leavers in post-16 education.