Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to help ensure that parents of students receive the full financial support to which they are entitled.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government spends around £1.5 billion per year so children have access to nutritious food during the school day and in the holidays.
Around 1.9 million pupils are claiming free school meals (FSM). This equates to 22.5% of all pupils, up from 20.8% in 2021. Together with a further 1.25 million infants supported through the Universal Infant Free School Meal policy, over one third of school children are now provided with FSM.
The Department provides an Eligibility Checking System to make the checking process as quick and straightforward as possible. The Department continues to use and refine a model registration form to help schools encourage parents to sign up for FSM.
The Department also provides guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers so that they can make Universal Credit recipients aware that they may also be entitled to wider benefits, including FSM.
The Department is committed to continuing support for school breakfasts, and in November 2022 the National School Breakfast Programme was extended for an additional year until the end of the 2024 summer term. The Department is funding up to £30 million in this programme and it will support up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas. This means that thousands of children from low income families will be offered free nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment and wellbeing. Schools are eligible for the programme if they have 40% or more pupils from deprived households, as measured by the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index.
The Department has also significantly expanded the Holiday Activities and Food programme and are contributing over £200 million per year in these free holiday club places for children from low income families. The programme provides enriching activities and a healthy meal for disadvantaged children in the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays. Local Authorities reported that over 685,000 children benefited from the programme last summer.
The Government has announced cost of living support worth £26 billion for the next financial year designed to target the most vulnerable households. This is on top of the £37 billion support provided by the Government this year. Much of this, including the £400 energy bills discount, the £150 Council Tax discount and the Energy Price Guarantee, is being applied automatically, ensuring eligible households receive the support they are entitled to. Cost of living payments are also paid automatically to support eligible people on means-tested benefits.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that children have access to high-quality early years (a) education and (b) childcare in (i) rural and (ii) seaside towns.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department is committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare in all areas. We continue to work across government to look at ways to make childcare more affordable and accessible, and to encourage families to use government-funded support they are entitled to.
Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. The department has regular contact with each local authority in England and if a local authority raises concerns about sufficiency issues, we will support them with any specific requirements. At present, all local authorities report that they are fulfilling their duty to ensure sufficient childcare.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework sets the standards and requirements that all early years providers must follow to ensure every child has the best start in life and is prepared for school. In 2021, the EYFS framework was reformed. An objective of these 2021 reforms was to improve early years outcomes for all children, particularly disadvantaged children, in the critical areas that build the foundations for later success, such as language development and literacy. A further objective was to reduce unnecessary assessment paperwork for practitioners and teachers so they can spend more valuable classroom time supporting children through rich curriculum activities.
The government is investing up to £180 million in an early years education recovery package of training, qualifications, expert guidance and targeted support for the early years sector to support the learning and development of the youngest and most disadvantaged children.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to increase funding for schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The 2022 Autumn Statement announced an additional £2 billion for schools, in addition to the funding announced as part of the 2021 Spending Review.
Taking the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocations and the additional funding announced in the Autumn Statement 2022 together, core schools funding, which includes funding for both mainstream schools and high needs, is increasing by £3.5 billion in 2023/24, compared to 2022/23. The core schools budget will total £57.3 billion in 2023/24 and £58.8 billion in 2024/25.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies have said that this additional funding will fully cover expected increases in school costs up to 2024 and will take per pupil spending back to at least 2010 levels in real terms, meaning 2024/25 will be the highest ever level of spending on schools in real terms per pupil.
The additional funding will be allocated to mainstream schools through the new Mainstream Schools Additional Grant (MSAG) in 2023/24. This will be on top of schools’ core funding allocations.
A typical primary school with 200 pupils will receive approximately £35,000 in additional funding through the MSAG, and a typical secondary school with 900 pupils will receive approximately £200,000.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve educational outcomes in seaside towns.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department recognises that education is a key determinant of young people’s life chances and social mobility.
The Schools White Paper, published in March 2022, set out a long-term vision for a school system that helps every child to fulfil their potential by ensuring that they receive the right support, in the right place, at the right time, founded on achieving world-class literacy and numeracy. The Department’s ambition remains that by 2030, 90% of all primary school children will achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas will have increased by a third.
The White Paper was clear about the areas the Department needs to drive improvement in to realise this ambition; to ensure an excellent teacher for every child, high standards of curriculum, behaviour and attendance, targeted support for every child who needs it, and a stronger and fairer schools system. The Department will build on plans in the White Paper, delivering real progress that raises educational outcomes. This includes working towards all pupils studying mathematics until the age of 18 and supporting schools with a plan to improve attainment in primary schools, as outlined by my right hon, Friend, the Prime Minister.
Significant support is also being provided for 55 Education Investment Areas (EIA), including the Sefton Local Authority. Over the next 3 years, up to £86 million in trust capacity funding and £150 million for extending the Connect the Classroom programme are being prioritised in EIAs. In EIAs, the Department is also offering delivering the Levelling Up premium, worth up to £3,000 tax free, to eligible teachers.
24 of these areas are Priority Education Investment Areas, including the coastal areas of Blackpool, Hastings and Scarborough, where the Department will offer further funding, in addition to the significant support available to all EIAs, to address local needs and drive improvement.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the childcare offer for working families.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department is committed to supporting working families and parents back into employment, by improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare. We have spent over £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements, supporting families with the cost of childcare.
In July 2022, the department announced measures to increase take-up of childcare support and reduce the costs and bureaucracy facing providers. We announced a £1.2 million marketing campaign via the Childcare Choices website to ensure that every parent knows about the government-funded support they are eligible for and encourage providers to take the necessary steps to offer the full range of childcare support to parents using their services. The Childcare Choices website is available at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/. The campaign has driven extensive reach, with adverts being viewed through paid search advertising and digital channels on social media 59 million times. There has also been strong engagement in the campaign, with 77,995 referrals to GOV.UK pages from the Childcare Choices website during the first burst of the campaign.
We also said that we will attract more people to childminding, expand the childminder market by reducing the costs and bureaucracy facing providers and encourage the growth of childminder agencies, enabling greater access to this flexible, affordable form of care. These plans aim to give providers more flexibility and autonomy and ensure families can access government support to save them money on their childcare bills. The full announcement can be found online at at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drive-to-reduce-the-cost-of-childcare-for-parents.
We continue to work across government, looking at ways to make childcare more affordable and accessible for working families, and to encourage families to use government-funded support they are entitled to.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the quality of school buildings in Southport.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has allocated over £13 billion for improving the condition of school buildings since 2015, including £1.8 billion committed for the current financial year. The Department is also delivering the School Rebuilding Programme to rebuild or significantly refurbish buildings at 500 schools in the poorest condition.
There are now 400 projects in the rebuilding programme, with the most recent set of 239 schools announced in December 2022, including Greenbank High School in Southport. Confirmed projects can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme.
For the 2022/23 financial year, Sefton Local Authority, which covers Southport constituency, received an annual School Condition Allocation (SCA) of £2,426,424 to spend on improving the condition of its maintained schools. Large multi -academy trusts and voluntary-aided school bodies, such as dioceses, also receive SCA. As SCA is allocated to responsible bodies, not individual schools, it is not possible to provide a constituency level breakdown of this funding. Allocations are published here: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.publishing.service.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fuploads%2Fsystem%2Fuploads%2Fattachment_data%2Ffile%2F1074690%2FSchool_capital_funding_allocations_for_2022_to_2023.ods&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK.
Schools not part of bodies eligible for SCA are instead eligible to bid to the Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) each year. In the 2022/23 CIF round, there were five successful CIF applications across three schools in Southport. CIF funding is released in phased payments as work progresses.
The Department recently announced that eligible schools will also receive an allocation from an additional £447 million in capital funding in 2022/23 for capital improvements to buildings and facilities, prioritising works to improve energy efficiency. This includes £588,635 for schools in the Southport constituency.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools are free to decide which events to commemorate and what activities to put in place to support pupils’ understanding of significant events and particular months or days dedicated to specific communities. Schools decide how they mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which commemorates the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis, along with all other victims of Nazi persecution and victims of subsequent genocides.
Schools can call on the support of organisations such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Holocaust Educational Trust and University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education and others to help with their activities for the day.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department is providing to students in university accommodation with the cost of living.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year, which have impacted students. Many higher education (HE) providers have hardship funds that students can apply to for assistance.
There is £261 million of student premium funding available this academic year to support disadvantaged students who need additional help. The department has worked with the Office for Students (OfS) to ensure universities support students in hardship, using both hardship funds and drawing on the student premium.
In addition, all households will save on their energy bills through the Energy Price Guarantee and the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme discount. Students who buy their energy from a domestic supplier are eligible for the energy bills discount. The Energy Prices Bill introduced on 12th October 2022 includes the provision to require landlords to pass benefits they receive from energy price support, as appropriate, onto end users. Further details of the requirements under this legislation will be set out in regulations.
Students whose bills are included in their rent, including energy charges, will typically have agreed their accommodation costs upfront when signing their contract for the current academic year. Businesses, including those that provide student accommodation, are covered by the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which provides energy bill relief for non-domestic customers in the UK. A Treasury-led review will be launched to consider how to support households and businesses with energy bills after April 2023.
The department has continued to increase living costs support with a 2.3% increase for maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for the current 2022/23 academic year. Students who have been awarded a loan for living costs for the 2022/23 academic year that is lower than the maximum, and whose household income for the 2022/23 tax year has dropped by at least 15% compared to the income provided for their original assessment, can apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.
The government is reviewing options for uprating maximum loans and grants for the 2023/24 academic year, and an announcement will follow in the autumn. We need to ensure the HE student finance system remains financially sustainable and the costs of HE are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university. At a time of tight fiscal restrictions we will need to consider spending on student finance alongside other priorities.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to promote participation among schools and colleges in Remembrance Day activities.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Many schools already undertake activities to mark Remembrance Day, but they are free to decide which events to commemorate and what activities to put in place.
Schools have the opportunity to promote Remembrance Day through subjects such as history and citizenship, which seek to develop pupils’ knowledge and understanding of military conflict, the role of the Armed Forces and the impact on civilians. This content can be incorporated into other lessons, themed activities, projects and assemblies.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of children’s social care provision in (a) Sefton and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Southport, to the answer I gave on 21 September 2022 to Question’s 45108 and 45126 in respect of children’s social care provision in Sefton. The Commissioner appointed in Sefton by the former Secretary of State for Education is currently finalising the report for submission to the department by 30 September 2022 to be published in October 2022. This report will help determine the best next steps to ensure improvements are made for vulnerable children and families.