Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that universities are able to accommodate all overseas students who have (a) applied for and (b) have received confirmation of residential accommodation.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Student accommodation is a busy part of the housing market and, as universities and landlords are private, autonomous bodies, the government has no role in providing student residential accommodation, nor a remit to intervene. The department expects universities and private landlords to review their accommodation policies to ensure they are fair, clear and have the interests of all students at heart. This includes making accommodation available at a range of affordable price points where possible.
As set out in the government's International Education Strategy, the department is committed to working with the higher education sector to enhance the international student experience to ensure they have an enjoyable and valuable experience whilst in the UK. The International Education Strategy can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-education-strategy-global-potential-global-growth/international-education-strategy-global-potential-global-growth. The department is also working closely with organisations such as the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) who offer a range of information and guidance for those in the UK. Further information is available at: https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/.
Universities provide a range of dedicated support to their international students before they arrive in the UK, on arrival and during their studies. Any arrangements for a hosting scheme for international students when they arrive in the UK would be for individual UK universities to consider, as part of their support provision.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a hosting scheme for overseas university students for when they first arrive in the UK.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Student accommodation is a busy part of the housing market and, as universities and landlords are private, autonomous bodies, the government has no role in providing student residential accommodation, nor a remit to intervene. The department expects universities and private landlords to review their accommodation policies to ensure they are fair, clear and have the interests of all students at heart. This includes making accommodation available at a range of affordable price points where possible.
As set out in the government's International Education Strategy, the department is committed to working with the higher education sector to enhance the international student experience to ensure they have an enjoyable and valuable experience whilst in the UK. The International Education Strategy can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-education-strategy-global-potential-global-growth/international-education-strategy-global-potential-global-growth. The department is also working closely with organisations such as the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) who offer a range of information and guidance for those in the UK. Further information is available at: https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/.
Universities provide a range of dedicated support to their international students before they arrive in the UK, on arrival and during their studies. Any arrangements for a hosting scheme for international students when they arrive in the UK would be for individual UK universities to consider, as part of their support provision.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the UK's contribution to Global Education initiatives.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Ensuring access to quality education is an FCDO priority. The UK is committed to supporting this through the global education funds. We are the largest donor to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), pledging £430 million in 2021. We pledged £80 million to Education Cannot Wait (ECW) in February 2023. We have been at the forefront of developing the new International Finance Facility for Education. Beyond financing, we launched a global Commitment to Action on foundational learning with partners in 2022. 29 countries have signed up to date, committing to ensure basic education for all children, especially the most marginalised.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to help prevent the potential suspension from September of all United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) services to registered Palestinian refugees, because of financial pressures on its budget; and what is their assessment of the capacity of other United Nations agencies to sustain essential services.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is a longstanding supporter of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) voting to renew the agency's mandate until June 2026, providing essential humanitarian support to Palestinian refugees across its five zones of operation. Our annual contribution to their programme budget helps UNRWA provide education to over 533,000 children a year (half of them girls), and access to health services for 3.5 million Palestinian refugees. Given the impact of the global pandemic on the economy and public finances, the UK moved to a target of spending 0.5 per cent of GNI on Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2021. This was a difficult - but temporary - decision and the then Chancellor indicated during his budget speech on 27th October 2021 that the UK is currently on track to return to 0.7 per cent of GNI spend on ODA by financial year 2024/25. We are aware of UNRWA's immediate financial challenges and have pledged £10 million to UNRWA for this financial year. I, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon as The Minister of State for the Middle East, frequently raise UNRWA's financial situation with Middle East and North Africa regional partners at ministerial level, and the Minister of State for Development and Africa has also raised this with with Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah, Supervisor General of KSRelief at the Riyadh humanitarian forum in February. To that end, the UK government is working with UNRWA and other international donors to help ensure its continued financial viability.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of reductions to university mathematics departments budgets on the UK’s ambition to become a global science and technology superpower by 2030.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Higher education (HE) providers are independent, autonomous institutions, responsible for their own decisions on staffing issues, including how they structure themselves to deliver research and teaching priorities. Where it is necessary to reshape their activities, it is important that universities carefully consider the impact of job losses on staff and students, and the overall sustainability of teaching and research in this country.
The department will continue to work closely with the Office for Students (OfS) and various parties, including a variety of HE providers across the sector, mission groups and other government departments, to understand the ongoing impacts and changing landscape of financial sustainability in the HE sector.
We want to provide a ladder of opportunity for everyone to get the education and skills they need for job security and prosperity and to support levelling up across the country. Access to HE should be based on a student’s attainment and their ability to succeed, rather than background.
The government has issued guidance to the OfS, asking it to refocus the entire access and participation regime to create a system that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by ensuring students are able to make the right choices and to access and succeed on high quality courses that are valued by employers and lead to good graduate employment.
John Blake, as the Director for Fair Access and Participation, is driving forward this important change. Using his experience and expertise from the schools’ sector, he is supporting and challenging HE providers to identify what will ultimately help students progress on their course and obtain good outcomes from their degree, such as programmes of intervention in schools, summer schools, and targeted bursaries to assist with living costs.
The government is committed to cementing the UK’s status as a science and technology superpower, levelling up across the country.
To achieve this, the UK needs talented people with the right knowledge, skills, and experience. The department is investing in programmes that do this at all levels of education.
The Prime Minister has set a new mission for all young people to study maths to age 18, equipping them with the skills they need for the modern economy. Our driving principle is to ensure that all young people are equipped with the right maths knowledge and skills to thrive, whatever their chosen pathway.
On 17 April 2023, the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Education set out how we will take the next steps towards delivering this mission. This includes:
The department is investing an additional £750 million over the three year period from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to support high quality teaching and facilities including in science and engineering, subjects that support the NHS, and degree apprenticeships. This includes the largest increase in government funding for the HE sector to support students and teaching in over a decade.
Several government strategies are in place to support our science and technology superpower ambition, in specific areas including the 2023 Science and Technology Framework , which sets out our approach to making the UK a science and technology superpower by 2030. The 2021 National AI Strategy, and the 2022 UK Digital Strategy set out how we will strengthen our reserves of talent and skills in order to drive success.
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Prime Minister's remarks on 12 June about the UK becoming a global leader in AI, what assessment they have made of whether there is a skills gap which might impede this; and if so, what steps they are taking to address that gap.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In March 2023, the government published its plan to cement the UK’s position as a Science and Technology superpower. As part of this, the department identified five critical technologies to deliver prosperity and security for the UK, including artificial intelligence (AI). The plan can be found in the attached document.
To support this ambition, the department is working on a cross-government action plan on science and technology talent and skills with the Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Department for Business and Trade and the Cabinet Office. In 2023, the department is developing a departmental Skills Dashboard to understand the supply and demand of science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills for critical technologies, including AI.
Digital and computing skills will play an important role in this work. The department has made progress in recent years, for example this year’s provisional entries for Computer Science GCSEs and A levels show 12% and 14% growth respectively, the highest of all sciences. However, we recognise that there is more work to be done.
This is why the department has overhauled the outdated Information and Communications Technology (ICT) curriculum and replaced it with computing. The department has also invested over £100 million in the National Centre for Computing Education to inspire the next generation of computer scientists.
The department is also investing more in technical skills and education, with courses and training in digital subjects often at the forefront of our reforms. Digital T Levels, Higher Technical Qualifications, Apprenticeships and Skills Bootcamps are ensuring we meet the skills needs for our priority technologies, including those increasingly needed for AI.
The department is building on these initiatives through the Digital and Computing Skills Education Taskforce which brings together government and external expertise to increase the numbers of individuals taking digital and computing qualifications in mainstream and tertiary education, and to attract individuals into digital jobs.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on the number of school rebuilding programme projects that have experienced construction delays of more than one month in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is transforming buildings at 500 schools over the next decade as part of its School Rebuilding Programme. The construction programmes of building projects in all Department programmes is monitored by the Department through programme management and project delivery teams.
In the four school rebuilding projects which have been completed, three were delayed more than a month against initial forecasts. These initial programme forecasts were made ahead of the impact of significant events that could not have been reasonably predicted and that affected the global market.
The Department has continuously improved its approach to building schools since the Sebastian James’ review. This identified that the Building Schools for the Future programme, introduced under the last Government in 2004, was overly bureaucratic and not designed to target poor condition, did not support high and consistent quality, did not use standardised specifications that work for education, and did not deliver value for money and economies of scale from central procurement and delivery, which are all things that are now prioritised when building schools.
Under the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) this Government launched in 2014, whole schools were built one third cheaper per square metre on average than schools built under the Building Schools for the Future Programme. The Department has further built on this success in its School Rebuilding Programme, which is exceeding delivery timescales compared to PSBP, while delivering schools that will be net zero in operation. The Infrastructure and Project Authority has highlighted that our progress is very good.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what estimate her Department has made of the (a) societal and (b) economic impact of scientific research collaborations between the UK and Africa.
Answered by George Freeman
While we do not set targets or estimate benefits, all UK development activity is governed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) rules: that activity is targeted at the economic development and welfare of developing countries. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) audit the activity. The UK-Africa scientific partnership makes vital contributions to the UK’s development and diplomatic objectives in Africa. Scientific collaborations are helping to overcome many of the most significant global challenges, from public health emergencies to climate change, to energy, education and more.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department has any targets on (a) the number and (b) the economic value of research collaborations with Africa.
Answered by George Freeman
While we do not set targets or estimate benefits, all UK development activity is governed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) rules: that activity is targeted at the economic development and welfare of developing countries. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) audit the activity. The UK-Africa scientific partnership makes vital contributions to the UK’s development and diplomatic objectives in Africa. Scientific collaborations are helping to overcome many of the most significant global challenges, from public health emergencies to climate change, to energy, education and more.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department spent on education about international development in schools in England in the last financial year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Autumn Statement 2022 announced additional funding of £2 billion in both 2023/24 and 2024/25, over and above totals announced at the Spending Review 2021. This means funding for mainstream schools and high needs is £3.5 billion higher in 2023/24, compared to 2022/23. That is on top of the £4 billion, year on year increase provided in 2022/23. This is an increase of £7.5 billion, or over 15%, in just two years.
This additional funding will enable headteachers to continue to allocate budgets to areas that positively impact educational attainment, including high quality teaching and targeted support to the children who need it most, as well as help schools to manage higher costs, including higher energy bills.
All schools and academies have the freedom to choose how to spend their core funding according to their own unique circumstances and priorities, providing that all expenditure ultimately benefits their students. The Department does not allocate specific budgets for each subject. It is for schools to decide the allocation of resources at an individual school level.
Geography is part of the statutory National Curriculum for maintained schools at Key Stages 1, 2 and 3. Within geography, the National Curriculum and subject content for GCSE sets out requirements for teaching human geography including economic, global and international development.
Citizenship is also part of the statutory National Curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4. As part of citizenship, pupils will learn about Parliament, the importance of voting and elections, the role of police, courts and justice, free press, human rights and international law and the governments of other countries, both democratic and non-democratic. They are also taught the actions citizens can take in democratic and electoral processes to influence decisions locally, nationally and beyond.