Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations she has received on the effectiveness of the change in the real terms per pupil funding measure as an indicator of growth or otherwise in school budgets when pupil numbers are declining.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Every year the department publishes the schools’ costs technical note to help the sector to understand school costs and funding. Our analysis considers pupil demographic changes alongside other factors.
The department allocates most mainstream funding through the schools national funding formula (NFF). In the 2025/26 financial year, 92% of total schools NFF funding is being distributed through “pupil led” factors, which are based on pupil numbers and pupil characteristics, such as eligibility for pupil premium and special educational needs and disabilities.
Real terms per pupil comparisons are only one way in which the department communicates funding changes, and schools and local authorities can also see their funding as total cash amounts. The total size of the core schools budget in the 2025/26 financial year is £65.3 billion, a £3.7 billion increase over 2024/25. This represents a 6.0% rise in cash terms, or 3.3% increase in real terms.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate she has made of the proportion of school funding that is directly related to the number of pupils.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Every year the department publishes the schools’ costs technical note to help the sector to understand school costs and funding. Our analysis considers pupil demographic changes alongside other factors.
The department allocates most mainstream funding through the schools national funding formula (NFF). In the 2025/26 financial year, 92% of total schools NFF funding is being distributed through “pupil led” factors, which are based on pupil numbers and pupil characteristics, such as eligibility for pupil premium and special educational needs and disabilities.
Real terms per pupil comparisons are only one way in which the department communicates funding changes, and schools and local authorities can also see their funding as total cash amounts. The total size of the core schools budget in the 2025/26 financial year is £65.3 billion, a £3.7 billion increase over 2024/25. This represents a 6.0% rise in cash terms, or 3.3% increase in real terms.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure that internet filtering systems used in education settings are independently accredited.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All schools and colleges must have regard to ‘Keeping children safe in education’, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2. This guidance already makes clear that schools and colleges should ensure appropriate filtering and monitoring systems are in place and that their effectiveness is regularly reviewed.
The department developed the filtering and monitoring standards to help schools and colleges to understand what they should be doing to keep children safe online. These standards offer support to schools, who can use South-West Grid for Learning’s testing tool to check that, as a minimum, their filtering system is blocking access to illegal child abuse material, unlawful terrorist content, and adult content.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) provide lists of illegal websites that filtering providers can block as part of their service, known as blocklists. Schools and colleges must make sure these blocklists are included with their filtering solutions.
To further support schools, the department has launched ‘Plan technology for your school’ which allows schools to self-assess their filtering and monitoring provision against the standards and make strategic decisions about how to improve their provision. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-technology-for-your-school.
The department will continue to work with the providers, including filtering and monitoring providers, and the wider sector, to understand how we can best support them.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the effectiveness of internet filtering systems used in schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All schools and colleges must have regard to ‘Keeping children safe in education’, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2. This guidance already makes clear that schools and colleges should ensure appropriate filtering and monitoring systems are in place and that their effectiveness is regularly reviewed.
The department developed the filtering and monitoring standards to help schools and colleges to understand what they should be doing to keep children safe online. These standards offer support to schools, who can use South-West Grid for Learning’s testing tool to check that, as a minimum, their filtering system is blocking access to illegal child abuse material, unlawful terrorist content, and adult content.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) provide lists of illegal websites that filtering providers can block as part of their service, known as blocklists. Schools and colleges must make sure these blocklists are included with their filtering solutions.
To further support schools, the department has launched ‘Plan technology for your school’ which allows schools to self-assess their filtering and monitoring provision against the standards and make strategic decisions about how to improve their provision. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-technology-for-your-school.
The department will continue to work with the providers, including filtering and monitoring providers, and the wider sector, to understand how we can best support them.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the School workforce in England figures, published in June 2024 will be the baseline against which she will measure progress towards recruiting 6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
High quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child and young person’s outcome in schools and colleges. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child.
This is why, in its Plan for Change, the government is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers in secondary and special schools, and in our colleges, over the course of this Parliament, and we will be continuing to monitor this.
Delivery is already under way. Upon entering government we moved quickly to expand our Get Into Teaching marketing campaign and, in July 2024, announced a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools. In 2024/25, we drove forward teacher recruitment and retention, backed by investment of around £700 million across schools and further education (FE). This includes announcing a £233 million initial teacher training financial incentives package, confirming targeted retention incentives worth up to £6,000 after tax, and taking steps to improve teachers’ workload and wellbeing. Building on this, on 22 May 2025, we also announced a 4% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools in England from September 2025, ensuring teaching remains an attractive graduate profession.
The government’s Plan for Change is starting to deliver, with over 2,000 more people training to become secondary school teachers this year and recruitment on track to improve even further for the cohort set to start training in 2025/26, with 1,070 more acceptances to postgraduate and teacher degree apprenticeship initial teacher training courses in secondary subjects by the end of April 2025, compared to the same time last year. Additionally, over 2,500 more teachers are expected to stay in the profession over the next three years.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the recruitment of 6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects will be split across (a) mainstream schools (b) special schools and (c) other educational settings.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
High quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child and young person’s outcome in schools and colleges. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child.
This is why, in its Plan for Change, the government is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers in secondary and special schools, and in our colleges, over the course of this Parliament, and we will be continuing to monitor this.
Delivery is already under way. Upon entering government we moved quickly to expand our Get Into Teaching marketing campaign and, in July 2024, announced a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools. In 2024/25, we drove forward teacher recruitment and retention, backed by investment of around £700 million across schools and further education (FE). This includes announcing a £233 million initial teacher training financial incentives package, confirming targeted retention incentives worth up to £6,000 after tax, and taking steps to improve teachers’ workload and wellbeing. Building on this, on 22 May 2025, we also announced a 4% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools in England from September 2025, ensuring teaching remains an attractive graduate profession.
The government’s Plan for Change is starting to deliver, with over 2,000 more people training to become secondary school teachers this year and recruitment on track to improve even further for the cohort set to start training in 2025/26, with 1,070 more acceptances to postgraduate and teacher degree apprenticeship initial teacher training courses in secondary subjects by the end of April 2025, compared to the same time last year. Additionally, over 2,500 more teachers are expected to stay in the profession over the next three years.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many apprenticeship starts there were in the hair and beauty sector in (a) 2023-4 and (b) 2024-5; and what estimate she has made of the number of apprenticeship starts expected in the hair and beauty sector in 2025-6.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The number of hair and beauty related apprenticeship starts in England is published in the apprenticeship accredited official statistics publication, which can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/aab773ca-8918-4c57-2ec9-08dd9836fa33.
These were last published in March 2025 and include full year figures for the 2023/24 academic year and year to date figures for the 2024/25 academic year (August 2024 to January 2025).
Apprenticeships are jobs and starts are dependent on employers choosing to offer apprenticeship opportunities, as well as individuals choosing to undertake them.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the policy paper entitled Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, updated 22 January 2025, what steps her Department is taking with the education sector to develop effective and safe use cases for the use of generative AI by school pupils.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In August 2024 the government announced the content store, which is a £3 million data library funded by the Department for Science and Technology. It will be used to provide large language artificial intelligence (AI) models with high-quality educational information, like curriculums and mark schemes. This means AI products will be even more effective at producing resources to help teachers.
The department also announced the AI Tools for Education Funding, £1 million of funding through Innovate UK’s contracts for innovation programme, to help build AI tools that will help with teacher workload across all the key stages.
In January 2025, to ensure the safety of children the department announced that leading global tech firms had jointly committed to making AI tools for education safer by design. Google, Microsoft, Adobe and Amazon Web Services are amongst the firms who have helped develop a set of expectations AI tools should meet to be considered safe for classroom use. The resulting Generative AI product safety expectations framework was announced on 22 January 2025.
To support a clear ask from teachers and leaders, the department is developing online resources and guidance materials to help teachers and leaders use AI safely in their setting. We expect the resources to be published in summer 2025. The online resources and guidance materials for teachers will outline the basic information that everyone working with young people should know about using AI safely and some potential applications or basic training in how to use generative AI tools.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the policy paper entitled Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, updated 22 January 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the use of generative AI by school pupils on those school pupils.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is working to develop the evidence base for the safe and effective use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, including interventions to ensure teachers are equipped and supported to promote safe and appropriate use of AI.
The department’s policy position on generative AI in education sets out advice on legal responsibilities related to data protection, keeping children safe in education and intellectual property law when considering the use of pupil-facing generative AI.
A new departmental group will advise on digital, AI and technology to increase the future pipeline of talent and prepare children and young people for an AI and tech-enabled world, as well as promoting the use of AI and education technology for better teaching and learning. Expert and evidence-informed recommendations will be produced.
The department is also developing online training resources and guidance materials for teachers and leaders, to be launched in the summer. The resources will help with the risks and opportunities of AI across settings as part of a wider digital strategy.
In January 2025, the department announced that leading global tech firms had jointly committed to making AI tools for education safer by design. Google, Microsoft, Adobe and Amazon Web Services are amongst the firms who have helped develop a set of expectations AI tools should meet to be considered safe for classroom use. The Generative AI product safety expectations framework was published in January 2025.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of undergraduates using generative artificial intelligence for completing assignments.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Universities are independent and autonomous bodies responsible for decisions including course content and teaching and assessment. As such, they are responsible for designing and implementing their own policies and approaches to the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Universities and colleges rightly have policies in place to identify and respond to cheating in assessment. The consequences for students can be severe, including removal from their course. With the support of the Academic Integrity Advisory Group, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education has developed an Academic Integrity Charter, which sets out key guiding principles to support academic integrity policy development and practice in UK higher education. Over 200 institutions have pledged to implement the Charter’s principles and commitments, working with staff and students to promote academic integrity and take action against academic misconduct.
The sector is developing guidelines for ethical and responsible use of generative AI for staff and students. In July 2023 the Russell Group published a set of principles, developed in partnership with educational experts, recognising the risks of AI and committing its members to helping staff and students become leaders in an increasingly AI-enabled world.