Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has plans to introduce monitoring arrangements to assess compliance with the updated school food standards once they are in force.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department aims to revise the School Food Standards and is engaging with stakeholders to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history.
School governors and trustees have a statutory duty to ensure compliance, holding school leaders to account for meeting the School Food Standards. Through our review, we will engage with the sector on a range of matters, including improving compliance.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of banning phones in schools; and whether she plans to make banning phones in schools compulsory.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Mobile phones have no place in schools.
The department’s new, stronger guidance on mobile phones in schools is clear that all schools should be mobile phone-free by default. Pupils should not have access to their devices during lessons, break times, lunch times, or between lessons.
Research from the Children’s Commissioner, published in April 2025, shows that the overwhelming majority of schools - 99.8% of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools - already have policies in place that limit or restrict the use of mobile phones during the school day.
The guidance will be implemented through behaviour management in schools, and by setting out clear expectations for teachers and school staff, while our Attendance and Behaviour Hub-lead schools will support other schools to implement and enforce a mobile phone policy where needed.
For the first time, Ofsted will check school mobile phone policy on every inspection, with schools expected to be phone-free by default. Ofsted will examine both schools' mobile phone policies and how effectively they are implemented when judging behaviour during inspections
In addition, a consultation will identify the next steps in the government’s plan to boost children’s wellbeing online, ensuring they have a healthy relationship with mobile phones and social media.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many civil servants employed by their Department work in roles primarily focused on (a) transgender policy, (b) diversity, (c) equity and (d) inclusion; and at what annual salary cost.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department currently employs three civil servants in roles focused on diversity,
equity and inclusion. Following a review of all job titles across the department, we can confirm that there are no roles whose primary focus is transgender policy.
Within the central human resources diversity and inclusion team, staffing aligns with standard departmental grading structures for the 2025/26 financial year. The team includes:
Information on roles and salaries for members of the department and its arm's length bodies
is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/disclosure-of-scs-posts-and-salary-information.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has met with representatives of Kinship's #ValueOurLove campaign to discuss potential reforms to the kinship care system.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. The government is determined to give every child the opportunities they deserve, and kinship carers play a crucial role in delivering this.
Departmental officials and I regularly engage with the charity Kinship as well as other key sector stakeholders to discuss and consult on ongoing and future reforms to the kinship care system.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that early years staff have access to adequate safety training; and what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of safety requirements within the Ofsted framework.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The safety of our youngest children is our utmost priority and the department continually monitors and reviews safeguarding requirements to ensure children are kept as safe as possible.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework sets the standards and requirements early years providers must meet to ensure that children are kept healthy and safe. It is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c024cb8c6d992f23edd79c/Early_years_foundation_stage_statutory_framework_-_for_group_and_school-based_providers.pdf.pdf. In September 2025, changes were introduced to strengthen safeguarding requirements in the EYFS, including clearer expectations on safeguarding training.
A new safeguarding training annex now sets out clearly what safeguarding training must cover and to support providers, a free online safeguarding training package is being developed by the department with the NSPCC, aligned to the updated requirements.
Ofsted inspects early years providers under the Education Inspection Framework against the full range of EYFS requirements. Inspectors assess whether providers are meeting statutory requirements and taking appropriate action to keep children safe.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help reduce the level of school absences among working class students.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Absence is a key barrier to opportunity. Children need to be in school to achieve and thrive. The government recognises that some pupils, including those eligible for free school meals, face additional barriers to regular attendance. This is why the department is rolling out free breakfast clubs in all primary schools from April 2026. Schools can also use Pupil Premium to fund evidence‑based attendance and behaviour support.
Our statutory ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’ guidance supports the attendance of all children, including those families on lower incomes.
We provide real‑time data and attendance toolkits so schools, trusts and local authorities can diagnose drivers of absence and adopt practice, including bespoke attendance targets, personalised roadmaps back to pre‑pandemic levels, and benchmarking against statistically similar schools.
This month, the regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) attendance and behaviour hubs will launch fully with support reaching 4500 schools nationally with intensive one-to-one support for up to 500 schools every year.
Our attendance mentoring programme is supporting 10,000 persistently absent children in ten areas with some of the worst attendance rates.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to launch the consultation on updating school food standards.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department aims to revise the school food standards and is engaging with stakeholders to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history. We intend to consult on these revisions and further details on timings will be available in due course.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support is available for families bereaved following incidents in nursery or early years settings, and whether additional resources are being considered.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department recognises the profound impact of the death of a child and the importance of ensuring that families are appropriately supported following serious incidents in nursery and early years settings.
As set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework and the Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance, early years providers and local authorities must follow established safeguarding and serious incident processes where a child has died. This includes notifying relevant authorities of serious incidents and working with local safeguarding partners, including health services and the police. Local safeguarding partners may undertake rapid reviews and where appropriate, local child safeguarding practice reviews to identify learning and improve future practice.
Support for bereaved families is coordinated locally and may include access to emotional and psychological support through health services, liaison with agencies involved in investigations or reviews and signposting to specialist bereavement support services and voluntary sector organisations.
The department continues to work with local authorities and safeguarding partners and to consider how guidance and processes can support effective responses following serious incidents.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support the use of industry specialists within further education colleges to provide masterclasses, staff training and professional development; and whether funding is available to expand such industry-FE partnerships.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As part of the Construction Skills package the department announced that areas with Local Skills Improvement Plans would benefit from £20 million to form partnerships between further education (FE) providers and construction employers, helping boost the number of teachers with construction experience in colleges through a teacher industry exchange scheme. The scheme will launch later this year and will facilitate opportunities for construction professionals to share their expertise in FE settings. This work will inform expansion into other priority sectors.
In addition, through our Taking Teaching Further programme, the department is supporting industry specialists across a range of technical sectors who are interested in teaching in FE. This programme provides funding to FE colleges and independent training providers for initial teacher education courses and early career support for technical experts moving into teaching. We are also working with the Gatsby Charitable Foundation as they pilot a new training offer for industry professionals coming into teaching in the FE sector. This will help industry professionals to receive a solid grounding in the skills and knowledge they need to be effective as teachers of technical and vocational students.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of safeguarding in nursery settings.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The safety of our youngest children is our utmost priority and the department continually monitors and reviews safeguarding requirements to make sure children are kept as safe as possible.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework sets the standards and requirements early years providers must meet to ensure that children are kept healthy and safe. It is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c024cb8c6d992f23edd79c/Early_years_foundation_stage_statutory_framework_-_for_group_and_school-based_providers.pdf. In September 2025, changes were introduced to strengthen the safeguarding requirements in the EYFS, including clearer expectations on safer recruitment, child absences, safer eating, safeguarding training and whistleblowing.
A new safeguarding training annex now sets out what training must cover. To support providers, a free online safeguarding training package is being developed with the NSPCC, aligned to the new requirements.
We are also appointing an expert panel to inform whether CCTV should be mandated within early years settings, along with the development of guidance on the safe and effective use of digital devices and CCTV within safeguarding, setting out best practice, technical information and clear expectations.