Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will extend the Primary PE and Sports Premium beyond the 2020-21 academic year to enable children who have been in lockdown to catch up with the level of physical skills attainment appropriate to their age.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Physical education (PE) and school sport plays an important role in supporting children and young people to be physically active, particularly during the current COVID-19 restrictions. The Department is working with the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department of Health and Social Care on how to support better PE, sport and physical activity provision for all children and young people. This is part of our continuing work to deliver our joint school sport and activity action plan, published in 2019.
The Department is considering arrangements for the primary PE and sport premium for the 2021-22 academic year and will confirm the position as soon as possible.
Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications for her consent for disposal of school playing fields by maintained schools or academies her Department has (a) received and (b) approved in each of the last five years; and in how many such cases she has written to the school concerned to remind them of their obligations to submit an application in the correct way.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The data is not held in the format requested but there are layers of protection of playing field land. These include legislative safeguards in the School Standards and Framework Act 1997 and the Education Act 1998 and, in the case of academies, further safeguards in academy funding agreements. The Secretary of State must give consent prior to the disposal of public land which is currently used for any school or which has been used for a school in the last eight years. We publish a list of departmental decisions on applications for consent to dispose of school playing field land since May 2010 on GOV.UK at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-land-decisions-about-disposals.
The Secretary of State does not routinely write to schools to remind them of their obligations; it is the land owner’s obligation to ensure that it meets its legal responsibilities.