Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of rolling over any unspent funds on the cards of children entitled to free school meals, at the end of each week, so that they can be used the following week.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Free school meals (FSM) are intended as a benefit in kind, rather than a cash benefit, and our primary interest is that schools meet their legal duties to provide nutritious free lunches to eligible children.
We trust school leaders to make the best decisions in the interests of their pupils and it is right that they have flexibility around how they deliver FSM.
We are, of course, very keen to ensure that all eligible children receive their full entitlement to FSM. We are also interested to hear about new and creative steps schools are taking to support eligible children. It is important that children are claiming their free lunch each day and that schools and colleges operating this system to avoid any risk of children building up significant cash reserves on their accounts or regularly spending their allowances at other times of the day without receiving a healthy lunch.
We would not wish to instruct schools to do any specific approach nationally. However, we will consider how we can share the very best practice around FSM.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much money was allocated from the public purse towards the provision of free school meals in (a) England, (b) Scotland, (c) Wales and (d) Northern Ireland in the most recent financial year for which data is available.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
For benefits-based free school meals (FSM) the department allocates around £440 per pupil per year currently eligible for and claiming FSM through the national funding formula to local authorities.
Local authorities then distribute this money to schools through their local funding formula, which is set in consultation with schools. For 2018-19, local authorities collectively allocated £505 million in respect of pupils currently eligible for FSM.
For the academic year 2017/2018 - the latest year in which data is available - the Department for Education spent £649 million delivering free meals for all infant children in reception, year 1 and year 2 in state funded schools through the universal infant free school meals policy.
FSM are fully devolved so the department does not hold information on how much was spent in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to prevent children and young people in Birkenhead from being criminally exploited by organised crime networks.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government is committed to taking action against all forms of child exploitation.
The department has commissioned the new ‘Tackling Child Exploitation’ support programme to provide dedicated expertise, advice and practical support to safeguarding partners in local areas to help them develop an effective multi-agency response to a range of child exploitation threats including child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation.
By June 2019 all local areas are required to publish new multi-agency safeguarding arrangements that will safeguard and promote the well-being of all children in their area. Under the new duty, the local authority, police and health must work together to put in place robust arrangements to respond to all safeguarding concerns that affect their area, including child criminal exploitation. They will report their actions and progress in their published annual reports.
To support local practitioners in preventing children and young people from being criminally exploited statutory safeguarding guidance documents ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ and ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ were revised last year to reflect extra familial threats to children. Exploitation threats to children were also reflected in our communications campaign ‘Together We Can Tackle Child Abuse’.
The Department for Education is making Relationships Education compulsory in all primary schools, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) compulsory in all secondary schools and Health Education compulsory in all state-funded schools, from September 2020. New content, that all children and young people will be taught, includes exploitation. In addition, the department is taking action to tackle persistent absence, reviewing exclusions practice, updating school security guidance and improving the quality of our schools and children’s social care services. We are also in discussion with the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to identify best practice and how we can encourage police-school partnership working.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding from the apprenticeship levy has been allocated to placements in Birkenhead constituency; how many of those placements in have been funded in Birkenhead constituency; and how many businesses in have received funding from the apprenticeship levy to provide placements in Birkenhead constituency.
Answered by Anne Milton
Employers in England who pay the levy can access funds for apprenticeship training via registering for an apprenticeship service account. Many levy-paying employers operate in more than one location, and they are free to spend the funds in their accounts on apprenticeship training across England. The Education and Skills Funding Agency cannot therefore disaggregate levy drawdown to individual regions or locations.
In 2019-20 funding available for investment in apprenticeships in England will be over £2.5 billion, double what was spent in 2010-11.
There were 850 apprenticeship starts in Birkenhead in 2017/18, and there have been 10,980 starts in the constituency since 2010.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the timeframe is for Further Education providers in Birkenhead constituency to begin offering T-levels; and when he plans for the roll-out of those qualifications in Birkenhead constituency.
Answered by Anne Milton
In the 'T Level Action Plan 2018' we confirmed that T levels will be introduced in phases, starting from September 2020, and gave details of when we currently expect each T level to be available from. Providers have been selected to deliver T levels in 2020 and the selection process to identify providers to deliver T levels in 2021 closed in February. We will confirm the results in June. We expect to confirm which providers will be able to deliver T levels from 2022 this autumn. Our aim is for all remaining T levels to be introduced by September 2023.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what financial assistance is available to school leavers from low-income households undertaking short courses that are promoted by the Construction Industry Training Board.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Construction Industry Training Board provides support for young people to access apprenticeships, and is involved in developing the Construction technical route, with the Design Surveying and Planning T level to be offered from September 2020. We believe that these substantive vocational qualifications rather than short courses are the best route to provide young people with the experience and skills needed to secure a career in the construction industry.
Apprentices are employed and earn a wage so do not require financial assistance. Data on the take-up of apprenticeships is included in the March 2019 apprenticeships and levy statistics available at the following link:
The CITB is currently investing over £20 million in piloting the Construction Skills Fund, a short course that is aimed at supporting non-traditional routes into construction (such as ex-offenders or the long-term unemployed), who we believe are most likely to benefit from this approach, which may then lead on to more substantive qualifications such as an apprenticeship.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of recent trends in the take-up rates among school leavers of short courses promoted by the Construction Industry Training Board.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Construction Industry Training Board provides support for young people to access apprenticeships, and is involved in developing the Construction technical route, with the Design Surveying and Planning T level to be offered from September 2020. We believe that these substantive vocational qualifications rather than short courses are the best route to provide young people with the experience and skills needed to secure a career in the construction industry.
Apprentices are employed and earn a wage so do not require financial assistance. Data on the take-up of apprenticeships is included in the March 2019 apprenticeships and levy statistics available at the following link:
The CITB is currently investing over £20 million in piloting the Construction Skills Fund, a short course that is aimed at supporting non-traditional routes into construction (such as ex-offenders or the long-term unemployed), who we believe are most likely to benefit from this approach, which may then lead on to more substantive qualifications such as an apprenticeship.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Construction Industry Training Board is taking to increase take-up rates of short courses among school leavers.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Construction Industry Training Board provides support for young people to access apprenticeships, and is involved in developing the Construction technical route, with the Design Surveying and Planning T level to be offered from September 2020. We believe that these substantive vocational qualifications rather than short courses are the best route to provide young people with the experience and skills needed to secure a career in the construction industry.
Apprentices are employed and earn a wage so do not require financial assistance. Data on the take-up of apprenticeships is included in the March 2019 apprenticeships and levy statistics available at the following link:
The CITB is currently investing over £20 million in piloting the Construction Skills Fund, a short course that is aimed at supporting non-traditional routes into construction (such as ex-offenders or the long-term unemployed), who we believe are most likely to benefit from this approach, which may then lead on to more substantive qualifications such as an apprenticeship.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of (a) the contribution to the public purse of, (b) the funding allocated to and (c) the funding unspent from the apprenticeship levy in the last 12 months.
Answered by Anne Milton
The apprenticeship levy is collected by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) from all UK employers with a pay bill above £3 million. Monthly receipts data for the apprenticeship levy is published by HMRC in its tax and National Insurance contributions receipts publication which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk.
Between April 2018 and February 2019, £2.5 billion was raised from the levy.
Employers’ levy funds are distinct from the Department for Education’s ring-fenced apprenticeship budget, which is set to fund apprenticeships in England only. The budget has been set in advance by Her Majesty’s Treasury for the current spending review period (to 2019-20). The budget was £2.2 billion for the 2018-19 financial year and it will rise to over £2.5 billion in 2019-20 – double what was spent in 2010. It is used to fund new apprenticeship starts in levy and non-levy paying employers and to cover the ongoing costs of apprentices that are already in training. A detailed breakdown of spending for 2018-19 will be published in the Education and Skills Funding Agency Annual Report and Accounts.
In the 12 months from February 2018 to January 2019, the most recent month for which data are available, £2.36 billion in levy funds were received into employers’ apprenticeship service accounts. These funds are available for employers to use for 24 months before they begin to expire on a rolling, month-by-month basis. In the same time period, a total of £523 million of payments were made from apprenticeship service accounts to cover training costs for learning. This figure does not include other costs, such as incentives and additional payments for disadvantaged apprentices.
We don’t anticipate that all levy-payers will use all the funds in their accounts. Income from the levy is also used to fund apprenticeship training for non-levy paying employers.
Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which schools in Birkenhead have expanded their intake without undertaking a public consultation in the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is not held centrally. The Department does not collect information relating to the published admissions numbers of individual schools.
All school admission authorities must set a published admissions number (PAN). This is the number of pupils the school will admit at their normal point of entry, for example, to the reception year of a primary school.
Admission authorities are not required to consult before increasing their PAN. They must, however, notify the local authority of any intention to do so.