Asked by: Eleanor Smith (Labour - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will allocate additional funding for ESOL to ensure that refugees have access to a minimum of eight hours a week of formal, accredited English language teaching in their first two years in the UK.
Answered by Anne Milton
The government recognises that learning English is essential to enabling refugees to rebuild their lives. The Department for Education supports adults in England through the Adult Education Budget (AEB) to secure the English language skills they need.
The Home Office and the department have also provided £10 million to enable refugees resettled through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme to access additional classes.
The government will publish a new strategy for English for speakers of other languages in 2019. Funding for all programmes beyond 2019-20, including any potential funding for this strategy, will be set during the upcoming Spending Review.