Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her department is taking to ensure children in foster care receive adequate mental support.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to ensuring children in foster care receive appropriate emotional and mental health support. Regulations require every looked-after child to have their emotional and mental health assessed by a medical practitioner. Local authorities must ensure this happens. Integrated care boards and NHS England must cooperate with requests for services. Joint statutory guidance sets clear expectations that local authorities and health partners should promote wellbeing, act early on signs of difficulty, and ensure assessors have the right skills. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-the-health-and-wellbeing-of-looked-after-children--2.
We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care to strengthen mental health support for care‑experienced children. Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, new corporate parenting responsibilities will be placed on government departments and relevant public bodies, ensuring they consider the needs of looked-after children and care leavers when designing and delivering health services. In December 2025, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and I announced a three year pilot to ensure children in care have access to the support they need sooner. This will build on existing work across the country, bringing social workers and NHS professionals together to provide direct mental health support to children and families when they need it most.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure children in foster care are sufficiently supported in the mainstream education system.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Every local authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head to promote the educational attainment of the children they look after, including children in foster care, wherever they live or are educated. All schools must also appoint a designated teacher with expertise in the needs of looked-after children. These children attract pupil premium plus funding of £2,630 per child up to the age of 16, managed by the Virtual School Head, to support meeting objectives in each child’s individual Personal Education Plan. We also provide post‑16 funding to help young people progress into further and higher education, training or employment. The full offer for children in care is set out in in the ‘Promoting the education of looked-after and previously looked-after children’ statutory guidance, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-the-education-of-looked-after-children.
Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are extending the Virtual School Head’s duties to include promoting the educational achievement of all children with a social worker and children in kinship care.
Asked by: Luke Taylor (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that young people are fully informed about student loan repayment terms.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government continuously reviews student finance to ensure it remains fair, sustainable, and supportive of students from all backgrounds.
Interest accrues on loan balances from the first day the loan is paid to the learning provider, and/or to the student, until the loan has been repaid in full or cancelled. Interest rates are linked to the Retail Price Index to maintain the real value of the loan over a long loan term but do not impact monthly repayments made by borrowers.
Prospective students have access to information across a range of platforms before submitting their loan application. Student loan terms and conditions make clear that the conditions of the loan may change in line with the regulations that govern the loans. Students sign these terms and conditions before any money is paid to them.
Repayments are calculated solely on earnings, not on amount borrowed or the rate of interest applied. Any outstanding loan, including interest accrued, will be cancelled after the loan term ends, and debt is never passed on to family members or descendants.
Asked by: Luke Taylor (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will commit to a review of the student loan interest rate system.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government continuously reviews student finance to ensure it remains fair, sustainable, and supportive of students from all backgrounds.
Interest accrues on loan balances from the first day the loan is paid to the learning provider, and/or to the student, until the loan has been repaid in full or cancelled. Interest rates are linked to the Retail Price Index to maintain the real value of the loan over a long loan term but do not impact monthly repayments made by borrowers.
Prospective students have access to information across a range of platforms before submitting their loan application. Student loan terms and conditions make clear that the conditions of the loan may change in line with the regulations that govern the loans. Students sign these terms and conditions before any money is paid to them.
Repayments are calculated solely on earnings, not on amount borrowed or the rate of interest applied. Any outstanding loan, including interest accrued, will be cancelled after the loan term ends, and debt is never passed on to family members or descendants.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase reading for fun in South Shropshire constituency.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The National Year of Reading is a UK-wide campaign to address long-term declines in reading enjoyment through engaging new audiences, reshaping public attitudes and building the systems needed to embed lasting, meaningful change, during 2026 and beyond. It includes a major physical and online marketing campaign, as well as exciting events, webinars, resources, and activities in communities, libraries, schools and early years settings throughout the year.
We are raising awareness of the National Year of Reading through a range of methods, such as via departmental communication channels, the National Year of Reading mailing list and social media, communications from the National Literacy Trust, and promotion via the English Hubs network.
The Reading Agency are also providing public libraries with resources, toolkits and print and digital materials to activate the National Year of Reading. Schools and Early Years settings in South Shropshire and across the UK can access a range of engaging online webinars, resources and activities throughout the year. More information can be found at: https://goallin.org.uk/get-involved/schools/.
This government is also providing £5 million of funding for secondary schools to purchase books to encourage reading for pleasure, as well as committing over £10 million in funding to guarantee a library for every primary school by the end of this Parliament.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure foster carers receive adequate (a) financial and (b) mental support.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is taking wide‑ranging action to strengthen foster care and ensure that children receive the support they need to thrive.
We have launched an ambitious fostering reform programme that aims to create 10,000 additional foster placements during this Parliament. These reforms are designed to reverse the long‑term decline in fostering capacity, expand the number of suitable homes, and rebuild the system so children can grow up in loving, local family settings with carers who feel trusted and valued. To achieve this, we are improving regional coordination so local authorities can work more effectively together, and we are re-writing the rule book to prioritise stable, trusted relationships.
Foster carers must be thoroughly assessed before approval. All prospective carers undergo rigorous checks and training, and our updated standards will help services ensure assessments are robust, consistent, and focused on the skills needed to provide high quality care.
To support long‑term retention, our reforms will ensure stronger wraparound support, so foster carers receive the practical and emotional help they need. This includes use of carers’ wider support networks, peer support and training. These measures aim to improve the experience of current carers and to encourage more people to come forward.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that new foster carers are adequately vetted.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is taking wide‑ranging action to strengthen foster care and ensure that children receive the support they need to thrive.
We have launched an ambitious fostering reform programme that aims to create 10,000 additional foster placements during this Parliament. These reforms are designed to reverse the long‑term decline in fostering capacity, expand the number of suitable homes, and rebuild the system so children can grow up in loving, local family settings with carers who feel trusted and valued. To achieve this, we are improving regional coordination so local authorities can work more effectively together, and we are re-writing the rule book to prioritise stable, trusted relationships.
Foster carers must be thoroughly assessed before approval. All prospective carers undergo rigorous checks and training, and our updated standards will help services ensure assessments are robust, consistent, and focused on the skills needed to provide high quality care.
To support long‑term retention, our reforms will ensure stronger wraparound support, so foster carers receive the practical and emotional help they need. This includes use of carers’ wider support networks, peer support and training. These measures aim to improve the experience of current carers and to encourage more people to come forward.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase long term retention rates for foster carers.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is taking wide‑ranging action to strengthen foster care and ensure that children receive the support they need to thrive.
We have launched an ambitious fostering reform programme that aims to create 10,000 additional foster placements during this Parliament. These reforms are designed to reverse the long‑term decline in fostering capacity, expand the number of suitable homes, and rebuild the system so children can grow up in loving, local family settings with carers who feel trusted and valued. To achieve this, we are improving regional coordination so local authorities can work more effectively together, and we are re-writing the rule book to prioritise stable, trusted relationships.
Foster carers must be thoroughly assessed before approval. All prospective carers undergo rigorous checks and training, and our updated standards will help services ensure assessments are robust, consistent, and focused on the skills needed to provide high quality care.
To support long‑term retention, our reforms will ensure stronger wraparound support, so foster carers receive the practical and emotional help they need. This includes use of carers’ wider support networks, peer support and training. These measures aim to improve the experience of current carers and to encourage more people to come forward.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) methodology and (b) data the Department uses to (i) calculate and (ii) compare the average cost of maintained special school placements and independent school placements.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
For maintained special schools and special academies, the department uses local authorities’ actual expenditure on high needs top-up funding, to which is added the £10,000 per place funding using pupil numbers from the January school census, divided by those pupil numbers to produce an average placement cost.
For independent special schools (ISS), the department cannot disaggregate this expenditure from that including non-maintained special schools (NMSS), so creates a combined average placement cost by adding spending on ISS fees, top up funding for NMSS and the total £10,000 per place funding for NMSS (using the number of pupils with education, health and care (EHC) plans at NMSS), and dividing by the number of pupils with EHC plans at both ISS and NMSS.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 write-off of 90 per cent of the High Needs block debts of English councils on the amount of SEND funding to be absorbed into her Department's Resource Departmental Expenditure Limits from 2028-29 .
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The High Needs Stability Grant is concerned with historic spending and will have no impact on pressures in 2028/29. From the 2028/29 financial year, the government has confirmed that special educational needs and disabilities pressure will be absorbed within the overall government departmental expenditure limits budget such that the government would not expect local authorities to need to fund future special educational needs costs from general funds. Budgets from 2028/29 onwards, including the core schools budget, will be confirmed at the 2027 Spending Review.