Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 27 February (HL2409), when the Government-funded feasibility study on estimating the prevalence of female genital mutilation and forced marriage in England and Wales will be published.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
As part of our commitment in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2021, the Home Office commissioned the University of Birmingham in April 2023 to conduct a feasibility study to examine whether it is possible to develop prevalence estimates for both Female Genital Mutilation and Forced Marriage.
Given the hidden nature of these crimes and lack of robust estimates, knowing more about the individuals that experience it disproportionately will allow us to make more effective, evidence-based interventions.
We have now received the final report and are reviewing the findings to determine next steps.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support schools and colleges to adapt their curriculum offering following the withdrawal of the WJEC Level 3 qualification in criminology (a) where the qualification was a significant component of vocational education programmes and (b) generally.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The intentions of the reforms to qualifications at Level 3 and below are to streamline the qualifications landscape, simplify choices for students, and only fund qualifications that are high-quality and lead to good progression outcomes. By ensuring that approved qualifications meet new, more rigorous criteria, young people can be confident that they will be able to progress to university and higher technical education and directly into apprenticeships and skilled employment.
Qualification reform puts A levels and T Levels at the heart of study programmes. Qualifications reforms are being undertaken in cycles.
Criminology qualifications will be considered in cycle 2 of the qualification’s reforms. An announcement, on which qualifications will be approved and which will see funding removed, will be made in 2025 and will be implemented from 1 August 2026. For students interested in the police, prison service, and other uniformed or emergency services, large applied general qualifications in uniformed protective services will remain funded until 2026. After this, qualifications in these subjects will either be approved as small alternative academic qualifications (AAQs), or technical qualifications mapped against relevant Level 3 occupational standards. Criminology is contained in the sector subject area of sociology and social policy. This sector subject area also contains a sociology A level which will serve students wishing to progress to higher education.
Students will have the option to choose A levels or a mixed study programme. A student aspiring to be a police constable for example, could study a small AAQ alongside appropriate A levels such as law, physical education, or sociology. Alternatively, they can study a relevant technical occupational entry qualification, which will be based on the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education approved occupational standards. These have been designed by employers to give the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed for the occupations to which they pertain. Consequently, criminology has not been listed as an area where the department would accept a small AAQ.
Over the last six months the department has invited all providers to attend one of ten in-person events in five cities across England to support them in understanding the details and timeline for reform and to provide information to help planning and designing their curriculum offer. The department has launched a set of web pages that provide colleges with the information they need. These web pages can be found here: https://support.tlevels.gov.uk/hc/en-gb/sections/16829562632850-Qualifications-Review.
The department will continue to support schools and colleges through online information, future guides and events as the dates where the new qualifications landscape is introduced move closer.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of students came from a sixth form or college within 15 miles of their university in the period between 2015 and 2023.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The information is not readily available or held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many service personnel are based at RAF Lossiemouth.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
As at 1 January 2024, there were 2,310 UK Armed Forces Service personnel stationed at RAF Lossiemouth.
Please note the following caveats:
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of secondary school trainee teachers of (a) physics, (b) chemistry, (c) foreign languages, (d) religious education, (e) mathematics and (f) computing have been recruited to begin training in Autumn 2024.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Departmental targets for 2024/25 postgraduate initial teacher training (PGITT) were calculated by the Teacher Workforce Model (TWM) and include recruitment to High Potential ITT (HPITT) which is a two year employment-based ITT programme attracting high performing graduates and career changers who are unlikely to have otherwise joined the profession. The targets are calculated to replace all teachers expected to leave the workforce in 2025/26, and the working hours lost from teachers that will reduce their teaching hours between years. PGITT is only one of many routes into the teacher workforce, all of which are considered when calculating targets. Other routes include undergraduate university courses, Assessment Only (AO), the upcoming teacher degree apprenticeship, returners, new to the state-funded sector entrants, and newly qualified entrants that defer entry into the profession (deferrers).
Further information may be found in the following publication: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets.
Departmental targets are for 23,955 secondary teacher trainees to start their initial teacher training (ITT) in autumn 2024, including HPITT trainees. As of last month, there have been 7,618 acceptances to postgraduate secondary courses in England (excluding HPITT acceptances).
Acceptance figures exclude HPITT acceptances as this data is not published. It is expected that more candidates will be recruited in the final four months of the cycle. Therefore, although acceptance figures provide a better indication of the number of teacher trainees starting training in Autumn 2024, they are not directly comparable to TWM trainee targets.
The physics TWM trainee target is 2,250 (incl. HPITT) and currently there have been 554 acceptances (excl. HPITT).
The chemistry TWM trainee target is 1,220 (incl. HPITT) and currently there have been 314 acceptances (excl. HPITT).
The modern foreign languages TWM trainee target is 2,540 (incl. HPITT) and currently there have been 622 acceptances (excl. HPITT).
The religious education TWM trainee target is 580 (incl. HPITT) and currently there have been 198 acceptances (excl. HPITT).
The mathematics TWM trainee target is 3,065 (incl. HPITT) and currently there have been 1,001 acceptances (excl. HPITT).
The computing TWM trainee target is 1,330 (incl. HPITT) and currently there have been 202 acceptances (excl. HPITT).
One of the department’s top priorities is to ensure that it continues to attract and retain high-quality teachers. The department is investing in attracting the best teachers where they are needed the most, through its teaching marketing campaign, support services for prospective trainees, and financial incentives package including bursaries worth up to £28,000 and scholarships worth up to £30,000. The department’s in-house teacher recruitment journey and associated digital services are generating new real-time data and insight to drive innovation. For example, the department has now rolled out an ITT course specifically designed to support more engineers to teach physics.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to research by Christine Camacho and Luke Munford at the University of Manchester showing that deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide are higher in northern and coastal local authorities, what steps they are taking to address that regional inequality.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper sets out the Government’s ambition to improve living standards and wellbeing across the UK, invest in communities, and improve public services. It sets mutually reinforcing levelling up missions to focus Government action, including a health mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030, and increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035.
The Government has published a 10-year drug strategy and is investing an extra £532 million between 2022/23 to 2024/25 to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is being used by local authorities to create places for an additional 54,500 people in drug and alcohol treatment services and bolster the workforce, seeking to prevent nearly 1,000 deaths. This funding is being targeted to areas of highest need first.
The Department is increasingly focusing on supporting local areas, including better meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. Current work includes: providing targeted support to local areas; enhancing data tools to better inform local needs assessments; supporting workforce development; implementation of the commissioning quality standard; and sharing good practice. Implementation support will adapt over the course of the 10-year strategy in response to need, to ensure we reach the drug strategy goals.
We also published our new Suicide Prevention Strategy for England in September 2023, setting out the actions we will take to save lives and reduce suicides within the next few years, and have set out our intention in the strategy to write guidance for local areas to support them in aligning their own strategies with the national strategy. We have also established a £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund to run from 2023 to March 2025, and on 4 March 2024 we announced the 79 organisations across the country that have been allocated funding. We have also launched a new nationwide, near real-time suspected suicide surveillance system, that will improve the early detection of, and timely action to, address changes in suicide rates or trends.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to research by Christine Camacho and Luke Munford at the University of Manchester, what steps they are taking to reduce regional inequalities in what those researchers refer to as "Deaths of Despair".
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper sets out the Government’s ambition to improve living standards and wellbeing across the UK, invest in communities, and improve public services. It sets mutually reinforcing levelling up missions to focus Government action, including a health mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030, and increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035.
The Government has published a 10-year drug strategy and is investing an extra £532 million between 2022/23 to 2024/25 to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is being used by local authorities to create places for an additional 54,500 people in drug and alcohol treatment services and bolster the workforce, seeking to prevent nearly 1,000 deaths. This funding is being targeted to areas of highest need first.
The Department is increasingly focusing on supporting local areas, including better meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. Current work includes: providing targeted support to local areas; enhancing data tools to better inform local needs assessments; supporting workforce development; implementation of the commissioning quality standard; and sharing good practice. Implementation support will adapt over the course of the 10-year strategy in response to need, to ensure we reach the drug strategy goals.
We also published our new Suicide Prevention Strategy for England in September 2023, setting out the actions we will take to save lives and reduce suicides within the next few years, and have set out our intention in the strategy to write guidance for local areas to support them in aligning their own strategies with the national strategy. We have also established a £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund to run from 2023 to March 2025, and on 4 March 2024 we announced the 79 organisations across the country that have been allocated funding. We have also launched a new nationwide, near real-time suspected suicide surveillance system, that will improve the early detection of, and timely action to, address changes in suicide rates or trends.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the planned defunding of the level 3 Criminology qualification on the criminal justice workforce pipeline (a) in general and (b) for jobs that contribute to maintaining national security.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to ensuring that students in post-16 education have access to a high quality suite of qualifications that are easy to choose from and which provide the best chances for progression into higher study, or into a skilled job. The department firmly believes that, until the Advanced British Standard (ABS) is introduced, A Levels and T Levels are the best route at Level 3 to achieving those outcomes. A Levels are world class qualifications that provide the best preparation for higher education in most academic subject areas, including the social sciences.
The government’s view is that A Levels should be the academic qualifications of choice at Level 3. This is based on evidence about progression and attainment for students who study A Levels compared to those who study other academic qualifications at Level 3. Students who study A Levels tend to both do better and have higher completion rates at university than students who studied other qualifications, even when taking into account background characteristics.
An impact assessment was undertaken to consider the post-16 reforms at Level 3 as a whole, which can be read here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1091841/Revised_Review_of_post-16_qualifications_at_level_3_in_England_impact_assessment.pdf.
The study of criminology at Level 3 is not generally an entry requirement for criminology and other related degree courses. A Level sociology, which is in the same sector subject area of sociology and social policy, will serve students wishing to progress to criminology degrees. Students wishing to progress into other careers in criminal justice and national security, such as legal, policing or prison and probation services, could also undertake other A Levels such as law, combined with small alternative academic qualifications in approved subjects such as uniformed protective services.
Development of the ABS is a decade long reform programme. Therefore, removal of funding from technical qualifications overlapping with T Levels is continuing as planned. The technical parts of the ABS are much closer to the T Level than any other qualification, meaning that T Levels will be the most future proof qualification for students at 16 to 19.
As the department reforms applied general qualifications, it will be up to colleges to decide what they offer to ensure that students have access to a wide range of publicly funded qualifications. As education is a devolved matter, the devolved administrations may take a different approach to post-16 education.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
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 the planned defunding of level 3 Criminology in England on the comparative ability of students from (a) England and (b) Wales to pursue careers in criminal justice.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to ensuring that students in post-16 education have access to a high quality suite of qualifications that are easy to choose from and which provide the best chances for progression into higher study, or into a skilled job. The department firmly believes that, until the Advanced British Standard (ABS) is introduced, A Levels and T Levels are the best route at Level 3 to achieving those outcomes. A Levels are world class qualifications that provide the best preparation for higher education in most academic subject areas, including the social sciences.
The government’s view is that A Levels should be the academic qualifications of choice at Level 3. This is based on evidence about progression and attainment for students who study A Levels compared to those who study other academic qualifications at Level 3. Students who study A Levels tend to both do better and have higher completion rates at university than students who studied other qualifications, even when taking into account background characteristics.
An impact assessment was undertaken to consider the post-16 reforms at Level 3 as a whole, which can be read here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1091841/Revised_Review_of_post-16_qualifications_at_level_3_in_England_impact_assessment.pdf.
The study of criminology at Level 3 is not generally an entry requirement for criminology and other related degree courses. A Level sociology, which is in the same sector subject area of sociology and social policy, will serve students wishing to progress to criminology degrees. Students wishing to progress into other careers in criminal justice and national security, such as legal, policing or prison and probation services, could also undertake other A Levels such as law, combined with small alternative academic qualifications in approved subjects such as uniformed protective services.
Development of the ABS is a decade long reform programme. Therefore, removal of funding from technical qualifications overlapping with T Levels is continuing as planned. The technical parts of the ABS are much closer to the T Level than any other qualification, meaning that T Levels will be the most future proof qualification for students at 16 to 19.
As the department reforms applied general qualifications, it will be up to colleges to decide what they offer to ensure that students have access to a wide range of publicly funded qualifications. As education is a devolved matter, the devolved administrations may take a different approach to post-16 education.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the extent of overlap in course content between (a) level 3 Criminology and (b) A level Sociology.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to ensuring that students in post-16 education have access to a high quality suite of qualifications that are easy to choose from and which provide the best chances for progression into higher study, or into a skilled job. The department firmly believes that, until the Advanced British Standard (ABS) is introduced, A Levels and T Levels are the best route at Level 3 to achieving those outcomes. A Levels are world class qualifications that provide the best preparation for higher education in most academic subject areas, including the social sciences.
The government’s view is that A Levels should be the academic qualifications of choice at Level 3. This is based on evidence about progression and attainment for students who study A Levels compared to those who study other academic qualifications at Level 3. Students who study A Levels tend to both do better and have higher completion rates at university than students who studied other qualifications, even when taking into account background characteristics.
An impact assessment was undertaken to consider the post-16 reforms at Level 3 as a whole, which can be read here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1091841/Revised_Review_of_post-16_qualifications_at_level_3_in_England_impact_assessment.pdf.
The study of criminology at Level 3 is not generally an entry requirement for criminology and other related degree courses. A Level sociology, which is in the same sector subject area of sociology and social policy, will serve students wishing to progress to criminology degrees. Students wishing to progress into other careers in criminal justice and national security, such as legal, policing or prison and probation services, could also undertake other A Levels such as law, combined with small alternative academic qualifications in approved subjects such as uniformed protective services.
Development of the ABS is a decade long reform programme. Therefore, removal of funding from technical qualifications overlapping with T Levels is continuing as planned. The technical parts of the ABS are much closer to the T Level than any other qualification, meaning that T Levels will be the most future proof qualification for students at 16 to 19.
As the department reforms applied general qualifications, it will be up to colleges to decide what they offer to ensure that students have access to a wide range of publicly funded qualifications. As education is a devolved matter, the devolved administrations may take a different approach to post-16 education.