Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the percentage of pupils attending the 754 early-adopter schools of the breakfast club scheme who will participate in that scheme.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
Providing free, universal breakfast clubs will remove barriers to opportunity by ensuring that every primary school child, no matter their circumstance, is well prepared with a supportive start to the school day.
Parents and carers can choose to take up the offer, although we encourage schools to promote the offer and drive take-up, particularly within disadvantaged groups.
The early adopter scheme is an important test and learn phase which will inform the national rollout. Through the scheme, the department will monitor delivery and collect data, including on take-up, to build our evidence base.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of the overall primary school population attend one of the 754 early-adopter schools announced as part of the breakfast club scheme.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
The department is clear on the impact that breakfast clubs can have to support children to arrive at school ready to learn, which is why the government committed in its manifesto to introduce free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary aged pupils. From April 2025, free breakfast clubs will be available in 750 early adopter schools, as part of a test and learn phase in advance on national roll out.
On 24 February 2025, the department published the list of schools that have been confirmed as early adopters of the free breakfast club scheme. The list is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/breakfast-clubs-early-adopters-schools-in-the-scheme.
As part of the scheme, around 180,000 children will have access to a free breakfast club, which equates to around 4% of the overall state-funded primary aged school population.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what additional funding a school receives for each additional pupil.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Every year, the department uses the schools national funding formula (NFF) to distribute core funding for 5 to 16-year-old pupils (reception to year 11) in respect of mainstream state-funded schools in England. The NFF determines how much funding will be available for schools in each local area. The precise sum received by an individual school is then determined by the local formula set by the appropriate local authority.
In the current NFF, the vast majority of funding is distributed on the basis of pupil numbers and pupils’ characteristics. In 2025/26, 74.2% (£36.0 billion) of the schools NFF has been allocated through basic entitlement funding, which every pupil attracts. A further 17.8% (£8.6 billion) of all funding has been allocated through additional needs factors based on deprivation, low prior attainment, English as an additional language and mobility. Therefore, the amount of additional funding a school attracts through the NFF for each additional pupil depends on the characteristics of that pupil. For example, in 2025/26, every primary age pupil attracts £3,847 in basic entitlement funding but would also attract an additional £495 if they were entitled to free school meals. The factor values for 2025/26 are attached and can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-for-schools-and-high-needs-2025-to-2026.
Through the dedicated schools grant, we are allocating a national average of £6,466 per pupil in 2025/26 in mainstream schools, compared to £6,330 in 2024/25 (including premises and growth funding). This represents a 2.15% increase per pupil on average in 2025/26 compared to 2024/25.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the current level of funding for Holocaust education and whether they plan to increase that funding.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines information for England only.
The government supports the teaching of Holocaust education by funding teachers’ professional development in this subject through University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education (CfHE), and the Holocaust Educational Trust’s (HET) Lessons from Auschwitz project, which gives students aged 16 to 18 the opportunity to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the 2024/25 financial year, CfHE will receive £500,000 in government funding, match funded by the Pears Foundation, and HET will receive £2.3 million. Funding for 2025/26 has been committed at broadly the same level.
In addition, a further £2 million funding for Holocaust remembrance and education was committed in the Autumn Budget on 30 October 2024. This will be used to support the ambition set by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, for all students to have the opportunity to hear a recorded survivor testimony. The department is currently exploring how we can support schools to fulfil this ambition.
The government has also committed £7 million to tackle antisemitism in education. £500,000 has already been awarded to the University Jewish Chaplaincy and a £4.15 million procurement is currently being evaluated with delivery commencing from spring 2025. The remaining funding will go towards a future Tackling Antisemitism in Education innovation fund.
As with all programmes, funding for the 2026/27 financial year onwards is subject to the spending review.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the likely increase in pupil numbers in state schools in the next year arising from a reduction in the number of pupils being privately educated.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
As set out in HM Treasury’s government response to the technical note on applying VAT to private school fees and removing the business rates charitable rate relief, the government estimates that approximately 3,000 pupils will move from private schools to state schools in the 2024/25 academic year. The response can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees-removing-the-charitable-rates-relief-for-private-schools.
The government predicts that in the long-term steady state, 37,000 pupils will leave or never enter the UK private school sector as a result of the removal of the VAT exemption applied to school fees. This represents around 6% of the current private school population.
Of those leaving or never entering the private sector, the government estimates an increase of 35,000 pupils in the state sector in the steady state following the VAT policy taking effect, with the other 2,000 either being international pupils who do not move into the UK state system, or domestic pupils moving into homeschooling. This state sector increase represents less than 0.5% of total UK state school pupils, of which there are over 9 million. This movement is expected to take place over several years. Additionally, the government expects approximately 2,900 pupils will move into state schools in England following the business rates policy taking effect.
As such, the impact on the state education system as a whole is expected to be very small.
Local authorities, devolved governments and schools have processes in place to support pupils moving between schools. Children move between and within the private sector and the state-funded sector every year, for a range of reasons.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps are they taking to ensure that any review of the National Curriculum learns from best international practice.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, which will be driven by evidence, from the UK and abroad, and a commitment to high standards for all young people.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to educate students at schools, colleges and universities about the dangers of taking the drug ketamine.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
The statutory curriculum for health education requires all pupils in state-maintained schools to be taught the facts about legal and illegal harmful substances and the associated risks to physical and mental wellbeing, including smoking, alcohol use and drug taking. This complements content about substances within the national curriculum for science. Schools can teach about the dangers of taking ketamine in these lessons.
In further education (FE) and higher education (HE) the government works through sector bodies and partner organisations.
The government supports activity by universities, sector bodies and other partners to discourage substance abuse by young people in further and higher education and to raise awareness of the harms of illicit drugs.
For HE, Universities UK set up a Drugs Taskforce that published its recommendations in late 2023. The recommendations are attached and available at the following link: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/sites/default/files/field/downloads/2024-06/Enabling-student-health-and-success.pdf. As autonomous institutions, HE providers are responsible for their own policies in relation to illegal drugs as the government has no remit to intervene.
In FE the Association of Colleges ‘Take back our Streets’ mission works to educate FE students by hosting charity talks on the dangers of drugs and addiction and works with organisations to build students’ trust and confidence in the police. The ‘Take back our Streets’ mission is available here: https://www.aoc.co.uk/news-campaigns-parliament/mission-accepted/mission-three-take-back-our-streets.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the total expenditure on special educational needs in England in 2023–24; and what is their forecast expenditure for 2024–25.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
Local authorities spent £7.9 billion on education for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the 2022/23 financial year. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) also allocated a further £1.0 billion on funding for SEND places directly to providers in that financial year. The outturn data for expenditure in the last financial year (2023/24) is not yet available but is due to be published later in 2024. Planned expenditure reported by local authorities for that year was £9.4 billion and the ESFA’s expenditure was £1.1 billion.
These figures do not include the amounts spent by mainstream schools and colleges from their budgets on children and young people with lower level SEND. The department does not collect this expenditure information from individual schools and colleges.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of the school age population in England have been designated as having special educational needs in the 2023–24 academic year to date.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department publishes annual figures on special educational needs (SEN) for pupils in state-funded schools in England. The most recent figures are for January 2023, available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england.
These figures show that 4.3% of pupils had an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan and a further 13.0% of pupils had SEN but no EHC plan (SEN support).
Updated information for January 2024 will be published on 20 June 2024.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with university Vice Chancellors to combat antisemitism on university campuses; and what steps they intend to take to improve the situation.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
On 9th May 2024, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, chaired a roundtable at No 10 Downing Street with Vice Chancellors from universities across the UK and was joined by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, and other Ministers. The discussion focused on tackling antisemitism in higher education, including preventing an escalation of protest activity such as that seen in the United States in recent weeks.
On the same day, the department announced its intention to provide £500,000 to the University Jewish Chaplaincy, enabling it to rapidly boost the vital support it offers to Jewish students on campus.
In his Autumn Statement, my right hon Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced £7 million to tackle antisemitism in education. The cornerstone of this package for higher education will be a new framework that will enable universities to demonstrate, through their processes and practice, a commitment to preventing and tackling antisemitic abuse.