Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of alternative routes into teaching physics other than recruiting physics graduates.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The within-school factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcome is high-quality teaching. This government has inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, especially in physics, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes. In 2023/24, we recruited 31% of our postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) target for physics trainees compared to 17% the year before. This demonstrates the significant work we need to do to reset the relationship with the sector and restore teaching’s status as a valued and respected profession, one that new graduates want to join and one that existing staff wish to remain in and thrive.
Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. Our measures will include getting more teachers into shortage subjects, supporting areas that face recruitment challenges and tackling retention issues.
‘Engineers teach physics’ is an established national ITT course. The department continues to work closely with sector experts, representative bodies and academic institutions, such as the Institute of Physics (IOP), Engineering UK, the University of Birmingham and the Gatsby Foundation, to ensure that this course reflects best practice and includes the most up-to-date industry knowledge.
For the 2025 recruitment cycle, the department awarded the IOP a grant agreement worth around £200,000 as part of the two-year Initial Teacher Training Scholarship Programme, enabling the IOP to offer 175 scholarships to talented individuals with a passion for physics and the potential to become inspirational teachers. Between 2022 and 2024, the IOP has recruited 256 scholars who received a bursary uplift, currently £2,000, on top of the standard £29,000 ITT bursary for physics.
The department has extended bursary and scholarship eligibility to all non-UK national trainees in physics and languages. We are also piloting an international relocation payment, worth up to £10,000, which will be available to teachers of languages and physics in the 2024/25 academic year.
The department also supports physics recruitment through government-funded Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses.
The department’s ‘School Teacher Recruitment’ marketing campaign inspires and attracts candidates to consider a career in teaching, including physics. It promotes the profession and directs people to the Get Into Teaching service, which exists to make teaching a career of choice and supports candidates to apply for teacher training in the most effective and efficient way possible. Get Into Teaching is also facilitating paid teaching internships for, physics, mathematics, chemistry, languages and computing undergraduates and master’s students.
The government continues to fund and support the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Ambassadors programme, which aims to inspire young people, often from underrepresented groups, into STEM career opportunities. More than 28,000 volunteers have registered from over 7,500 employers, reaching over three million young people every year. These volunteers engage with young people to spark interest in STEM subjects.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to recruit engineers into the teaching profession.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The within-school factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcome is high-quality teaching. This government has inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, especially in physics, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes. In 2023/24, we recruited 31% of our postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) target for physics trainees compared to 17% the year before. This demonstrates the significant work we need to do to reset the relationship with the sector and restore teaching’s status as a valued and respected profession, one that new graduates want to join and one that existing staff wish to remain in and thrive.
Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. Our measures will include getting more teachers into shortage subjects, supporting areas that face recruitment challenges and tackling retention issues.
‘Engineers teach physics’ is an established national ITT course. The department continues to work closely with sector experts, representative bodies and academic institutions, such as the Institute of Physics (IOP), Engineering UK, the University of Birmingham and the Gatsby Foundation, to ensure that this course reflects best practice and includes the most up-to-date industry knowledge.
For the 2025 recruitment cycle, the department awarded the IOP a grant agreement worth around £200,000 as part of the two-year Initial Teacher Training Scholarship Programme, enabling the IOP to offer 175 scholarships to talented individuals with a passion for physics and the potential to become inspirational teachers. Between 2022 and 2024, the IOP has recruited 256 scholars who received a bursary uplift, currently £2,000, on top of the standard £29,000 ITT bursary for physics.
The department has extended bursary and scholarship eligibility to all non-UK national trainees in physics and languages. We are also piloting an international relocation payment, worth up to £10,000, which will be available to teachers of languages and physics in the 2024/25 academic year.
The department also supports physics recruitment through government-funded Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses.
The department’s ‘School Teacher Recruitment’ marketing campaign inspires and attracts candidates to consider a career in teaching, including physics. It promotes the profession and directs people to the Get Into Teaching service, which exists to make teaching a career of choice and supports candidates to apply for teacher training in the most effective and efficient way possible. Get Into Teaching is also facilitating paid teaching internships for, physics, mathematics, chemistry, languages and computing undergraduates and master’s students.
The government continues to fund and support the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Ambassadors programme, which aims to inspire young people, often from underrepresented groups, into STEM career opportunities. More than 28,000 volunteers have registered from over 7,500 employers, reaching over three million young people every year. These volunteers engage with young people to spark interest in STEM subjects.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) pupils’ access to education following the concerns of the Special Education Needs and Disabilities Transport Operators Group that the increase in National Insurance contributions will affect their ability to take children to school every day.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Home-to-school travel is an integral part of the school system. It provides a valuable service on which many families rely. The department is grateful to the many transport operators for the crucial role they play in ensuring that children receive the education that they need to help them thrive.
Departmental officials engage regularly with local authorities to understand the challenges they face and will continue to monitor this situation. We do not expect there to be a significant impact on home-to-school travel for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Local authorities are responsible for arranging home-to-school travel and deliver this through a range of in-house services and external providers.
The government recognises the need to protect the smallest employers. It has more than doubled the Employment Allowance to £10,500 which means that more than half of businesses with National Insurance liabilities will either gain or see no change next year. Businesses will still be able to claim employer National Insurance contributions relief, where eligible.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will set out a timeline for completing and publishing the Department for Education's work with the National Workload Action Group to consider "drivers of unnecessary workload" for social workers; and if so, when.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The National Workload Action Group will provide its final report to the department no later than January 2025, with insights and considerations for reducing unnecessary workload for social workers. Ministers will then consider the best way to take forward findings from the report and next steps.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the £90 million of funding announced in the Autumn Budget for children’s homes is new funding; how many places will be funded; and where those places will be located.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2024 represented HM Government’s decisions on future spending in the context of the unfunded pressures, across both capital and resource spend, which the new government inherited in July and which my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, set out.
The government has decided to invest further in supporting the development of children’s social care. £86 million of the £90 million funding announced in the Autumn Budget for 2025/26 represents the decision to invest in the Children’s Homes capital programme to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure and open residential children’s homes. The remaining £4 million will support smaller capital initiatives linked to the new government’s wider ambition to reform of children’s social care.
The programme will support the provision of up to 550 open children’s home placements nationwide, including a new bidding round launched to increase provision for children with complex needs.
The programme is intending to support the provision of around 80 additional secure children’s home placements nationwide. Currently, this includes the building of new or replacement homes in Lincolnshire, Devon, Hampshire, and in London and West Midlands regions. There will be improvement works undertaken at other existing homes nationwide that may expand provision.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish the results from the Market Interventions Advisory Group on the children’s social care market; and if so, when.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Markets Interventions Advisory Group was established to advise the department on options for addressing the systemic issues in the children's social care placement market, as identified by the Competition and Market Authority in their 2022 report and the independent review of children’s social care, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-childrens-social-care-final-report.
The work of the group, the reports set out above and engagement with a range of stakeholders fed into our policy paper ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’, which was published on 18 November 2024. It sets out the government’s ambitious plans to fix the dysfunctional care market and crackdown on the excessive and exploitative profits made by some private providers.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the likely impact of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 on the prevalence of hate speech in universities.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government fully supports peaceful protest and lawful free speech in universities. However, that does not extend to unlawful free speech, including that which incites hatred and violence, or which causes harassment.
One of the reasons the government has paused further implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 is because the higher education (HE) sector, minority groups and unions representing staff on campus have raised concerns about the Act, believing it to be disproportionate, burdensome and damaging to the welfare of students, and that fears of sanction could push providers to overlook minority groups’ safety. All students, regardless of race or religion, should be free to focus on their studies rather than worry about their safety. By pausing further commencement of the Act in order to consider all options, the government is ensuring that HE remains a space for constructive dialogue and diverse opinions, rather than a battleground for ideological clashes.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the letter signed by over 600 academics and seven British Nobel laureates to the Secretary of State for Education calling for the implementation of the remaining provisions of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I, as Minister for Skills, can confirm that I have considered the letter and the concerns raised in it. Officials and I have met with over 40 individuals to discuss the future of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, including academics with concerns about constraints on freedom of speech and academic freedom. A number of these academics were signatories to the open letter sent to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education on 15 August 2024. This includes representatives from Academics for Academic Freedom, Committee for Academic Freedom and the London Universities Council for Academic Freedom. Officials have also met with representatives of nine sector mission groups, unions and representatives of minority groups.
This stakeholder engagement will feed into decision making on the future of the Act and this government’s longer-term policy on protecting freedom of speech across the higher education sector.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sherlock on 7 August (HL344), how many staff in the Department for Education are permitted to undertake diversity-related network time during core working hours; what is the percentage of overall working time they are permitted to spend on such network activity; how many hours are allocated in total; what are the names of each of the networks being funded; and whether they have any plans to increase or reduce such funding.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department does not hold the data requested. The majority of staff time spent on diversity staff networks is voluntary and unpaid.
Asked by: Baroness Barran (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the financial risk to universities as a result of volatility in international student numbers.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Office for Students (OfS) is the independent regulator of higher education (HE) in England. The OfS is responsible for monitoring and reporting on the financial sustainability of HE providers in England to ensure they have an up to date understanding of the sustainability of the sector.
The OfS’ most recent report, which was published in May 2024, is available in the attached document. In the report, the OfS stated that the HE financial model had become reliant on fee income from international students, with a particular vulnerability where recruitment is predominantly from a single country.
The department continues to work with the OfS and other relevant parties to understand the ongoing impacts and changing landscape of financial sustainability in the sector.