Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, if he will hold discussions with his Nigerian counterpart on the effectiveness of the Safe Schools Initiative for supporting the education of (a) girls, (b) religious minorities and (c) other children in conflict-affected areas of northern Nigeria.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Special Envoy for Girls Education, Helen Grant MP, will meet the Nigerian Education Minister on May 20 to discuss Nigeria's upcoming programme of education reform. The UK and Nigeria are signatories of the Safe School Declaration which commits governments to protect education from violence. The UK supports the implementation of the Safe Schools Initiative in Nigeria through its Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises (EiEPC) programme. This provides assistance to children affected by conflict in Borno and Yobe states, allowing them to learn foundational skills, increase their resilience and strengthen systems which support formal and non-formal education during emergencies.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 25 April (HL Deb col 640GC–641GC), whether a percentage of the increased official development assistance for Pakistan will be allocated to education for destitute girls from the country's minorities.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK's targeted aid programmes are working to alleviate the issues facing minorities in Pakistan. Our £46.7 million Aawaz II programme is tackling social intolerance and exclusion by supporting systemic reforms and promoting interfaith dialogue. Our £130 million Girls and Out of School Action for Learning programme is improving education outcomes for marginalised children, including those from religious minorities; by 2027, the programme will support 250,000 children from marginalised sections of society. Our £4.2 million Hate Speech and Disinformation Programme is helping to protect vulnerable groups, with a focus on making digital spaces safer for women and religious minorities. These programmes tackle broad issues which impact across a variety of vulnerable demographics. We assess that this is the most effective way of helping vulnerable populations.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 25 April (HL Deb col 640GC–641GC), whether a percentage of development aid to Pakistan will be allocated to professional training projects for young people from Pakistan's minorities.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK's targeted aid programmes are working to alleviate the issues facing minorities in Pakistan. Our £46.7 million Aawaz II programme is tackling social intolerance and exclusion by supporting systemic reforms and promoting interfaith dialogue. Our £130 million Girls and Out of School Action for Learning programme is improving education outcomes for marginalised children, including those from religious minorities; by 2027, the programme will support 250,000 children from marginalised sections of society. Our £4.2 million Hate Speech and Disinformation Programme is helping to protect vulnerable groups, with a focus on making digital spaces safer for women and religious minorities. These programmes tackle broad issues which impact across a variety of vulnerable demographics. We assess that this is the most effective way of helping vulnerable populations.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 25 April (HL Deb col 641GC), whether religious minorities in Pakistan will be included in the list of marginalized communities prioritised for UK aid.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK's targeted aid programmes are working to alleviate the issues facing minorities in Pakistan. Our £46.7 million Aawaz II programme is tackling social intolerance and exclusion by supporting systemic reforms and promoting interfaith dialogue. Our £130 million Girls and Out of School Action for Learning programme is improving education outcomes for marginalised children, including those from religious minorities; by 2027, the programme will support 250,000 children from marginalised sections of society. Our £4.2 million Hate Speech and Disinformation Programme is helping to protect vulnerable groups, with a focus on making digital spaces safer for women and religious minorities. These programmes tackle broad issues which impact across a variety of vulnerable demographics. We assess that this is the most effective way of helping vulnerable populations.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 25 April (HL Deb col 624GC–643GC), whether a percentage of aid to Pakistan will be allocated to improving the living conditions of people from religious minorities, including the provision of fresh running water and electricity, and the creation of primary schools.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK's targeted aid programmes are working to alleviate the issues facing minorities in Pakistan. Our £46.7 million Aawaz II programme is tackling social intolerance and exclusion by supporting systemic reforms and promoting interfaith dialogue. Our £130 million Girls and Out of School Action for Learning programme is improving education outcomes for marginalised children, including those from religious minorities; by 2027, the programme will support 250,000 children from marginalised sections of society. Our £4.2 million Hate Speech and Disinformation Programme is helping to protect vulnerable groups, with a focus on making digital spaces safer for women and religious minorities. These programmes tackle broad issues which impact across a variety of vulnerable demographics. We assess that this is the most effective way of helping vulnerable populations.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 studying religious education at key stage (a) 4 and (b) 5 on the educational attainment of disadvantaged pupils.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
It is mandatory for state-funded schools to teach religious education to all pupils to age 18, subject to parents having a right to withdraw their children from all or part of the subject. However, it is not mandatory for schools to teach the religious studies GCSE or A level. The department has not assessed the impact of studying religious education at Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 on the overall educational attainment of disadvantaged pupils.
Asked by: Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total number of individual named (1) current, and (2) former, students' records held by the Department for Education collected in equality monitoring, broken down by (a) religious affiliation, (b) sexual orientation, (c) gender identity, and (d) disability.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA – now part of Jisc), is responsible for collecting and publishing data on the UK’s higher education (HE) sector. The latest published statistics refer to the 2021/22 academic year.
The department holds individual-level HESA data for all HE students in each academic year from 1995/96 to 2021/22. From 1998/99, the students are able to be identified by name.
The HESA data includes information on student’s disability status, religion or belief, gender identity and sexual orientation, although, gender identity, sexual orientation and religion or belief (for English, Scottish and Welsh HE providers) were not collected prior to 2012/13. Note that gender identity differs to biological sex which has been collected across all academic years since 1995/96.
The estimated figures below are derived by counting every student that started a HE course in the UK since 1999/2000, as well as the total number of enrolments (entrants and continuing students) in the academic year 1998/99. The figures exclude students with a missing first and last name, but includes students who are not part of the standard registration population. Therefore, these figures will differ from HESA’s publications. Additionally, students that disclose sensitive characteristics for the first time in any year after their first year of study are not counted under the estimated number of students with known sensitive characteristics, and students that have started more than one course since 1998/99 are counted once for each enrolment.
The department is estimated to hold the names of 28,927,337 students that started a HE course in the UK between 1998/99 and 2021/22. For 27,424,867 of these names, the department holds information on at least one of the following sensitive characteristics - disability status, religion or belief, gender identity or sexual orientation.
Of the estimated 28,927,337 names held by the department, 27,373,886 (95%) of them have a known disability status, 7,403,109 (26%) have a known religion or belief, 6,164,770 (21%) have a known gender identity and 6,388,972 (22%) have a known sexual orientation.
Student numbers broken down by personal characteristics over time are available through HESA’s open data pages, which can be found here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/sb265/figure-5. HESA’s publication archive for earlier years can be found here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/publications.
While individual identifiers are retained by the department for matching purposes, at all times the department will minimise the processing of, and access to, instant or meaningful identifiers. Access to named data within the department is restricted to a small number of data professionals with responsibility for matching this data with other sources and creating pseudonymised, or aggregated, versions of the data which are subsequently used for research and statistics.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to make an assessment of the adequacy of school policies on (a) religious practices and (b) inclusivity.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
There is currently no legal requirement for schools to allow their pupils time within the school day to pray upon request, nor are they required to provide any pupil with a physical space, such as a prayer room, to conduct their prayers. It is a matter for individual schools and headteachers to make a decision that is in the interest of their pupils. It is important when considering any requests relating to prayer that they do so in the context of the Equality Act 2010, and their public sector equality duty.
Under the Equality Act 2010 schools must not discriminate against a pupil in a number of respects because of a characteristic protected by the Act, including religion or belief. State-funded schools are also subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). All children and young people must be treated fairly and supported to thrive and reach their potential within a respectful environment.
The department has published guidance for schools on how to comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010, which can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-advice-for-schools. This includes specific advice on religion or belief.
The PSED was introduced in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 and places a legal obligation on public authorities to consider how their policy or service decisions impacts differently on individuals. The department as a public body is required to give due regard to PSED in its decision making. According to the PSED, a public authority must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to:
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to (a) monitor and (b) tackle potential discrimination in schools against students based on their religious practices.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
There is currently no legal requirement for schools to allow their pupils time within the school day to pray upon request, nor are they required to provide any pupil with a physical space, such as a prayer room, to conduct their prayers. It is a matter for individual schools and headteachers to make a decision that is in the interest of their pupils. It is important when considering any requests relating to prayer that they do so in the context of the Equality Act 2010, and their public sector equality duty.
Under the Equality Act 2010 schools must not discriminate against a pupil in a number of respects because of a characteristic protected by the Act, including religion or belief. State-funded schools are also subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). All children and young people must be treated fairly and supported to thrive and reach their potential within a respectful environment.
The department has published guidance for schools on how to comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010, which can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-advice-for-schools. This includes specific advice on religion or belief.
The PSED was introduced in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 and places a legal obligation on public authorities to consider how their policy or service decisions impacts differently on individuals. The department as a public body is required to give due regard to PSED in its decision making. According to the PSED, a public authority must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to:
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department issues to schools on balancing inclusivity and religious freedoms.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
There is currently no legal requirement for schools to allow their pupils time within the school day to pray upon request, nor are they required to provide any pupil with a physical space, such as a prayer room, to conduct their prayers. It is a matter for individual schools and headteachers to make a decision that is in the interest of their pupils. It is important when considering any requests relating to prayer that they do so in the context of the Equality Act 2010, and their public sector equality duty.
Under the Equality Act 2010 schools must not discriminate against a pupil in a number of respects because of a characteristic protected by the Act, including religion or belief. State-funded schools are also subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). All children and young people must be treated fairly and supported to thrive and reach their potential within a respectful environment.
The department has published guidance for schools on how to comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010, which can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-advice-for-schools. This includes specific advice on religion or belief.
The PSED was introduced in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 and places a legal obligation on public authorities to consider how their policy or service decisions impacts differently on individuals. The department as a public body is required to give due regard to PSED in its decision making. According to the PSED, a public authority must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to: