Generative Artificial Intelligence: Schools

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I thank my near-ish neighbour, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), for securing a debate on this important subject and for the constructive and collegiate way in which he has sought to conduct it. I thank all other Members for their interventions and contributions, including the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), for her insightful comments on challenges and opportunities and her helpful reminder of the Committee’s work on screen time.

The Government believe that generative artificial intelligence presents exciting opportunities to improve people’s lives, including by making our public services better. AI will support the delivery of the Government’s plan for change and our opportunity mission. I agree with the comments of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Swindon North (Will Stone) and for Dulwich and West Norwood and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, about the potential for AI and technology to support children with special educational needs. There is a strong evidence base for the impact that assistive technology such as screen readers and dictation tools can have in breaking down barriers to opportunity for children with SEND.

If used safely, effectively and with the right infrastructure in place, AI can support every child and young person, regardless of their background, to achieve at school and college and develop the knowledge and skills that they need for life. AI has the potential to ease workloads, assist with lesson planning and free up time for high-quality face-to-face teaching. That is why we have put AI at the forefront of our mission to modernise the education system, to support our teachers and school support staff and to enable them to deliver better educational outcomes for our children. The Department’s approach to generative AI in education is not static. It will continue to develop as our evidence and understanding grow.

The Government are leading the way. As announced at the Education World Forum in May, we will host an international summit on generative AI in education in 2026, bringing together education leaders from around the world to implement global guidelines for generative AI in education. We are committed to taking action that considers the risks, such as safety, and challenges, alongside opportunities and benefits. I assure the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that those discussions include ministerial colleagues across the UK. He will know that education is a devolved matter, but I can confirm that I had discussions with my ministerial equivalent in Northern Ireland during my visit to Belfast last month.

We have taken action to make sure that AI can be effectively used in schools. We have funded Oak National Academy’s AI lesson planning assistant, Aila, which helps teachers save significant time with lesson planning. Teachers report time savings of around three hours per week.

The right hon. Member for East Hampshire was right to mention support through the effective use of AI. Further, we launched the content store pilot in August of last year, aiming to make available the underpinning content and data that are needed for great AI tools. Coupled with investment in the AI tools for education competition, we are supporting edtech innovators to develop effective AI tools that can reduce the burden of feedback and marking on teachers.

Last month, I attended London Tech Week and announced an additional £1 million in contracts to further develop existing prototype tools so that they are ready to be used in the classroom. I saw demonstrations of tools developed at a hackathon using our innovative education content store. I also saw at first hand the value of that store and the importance of making available the underpinning content and data to develop excellent AI tools for education.

We know that any advancement in technology presents risks as well as opportunities, which is why we are taking steps to manage these proactively, including through safeguards and by gathering robust evidence on AI use.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Stephen Morgan]

I will give way, but I am conscious that the right hon. Gentleman was not here at the start of the debate.

[Graham Stuart]

I apologise for not being here at the start, and I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. To what extent is he concerned about biases within the models? Most of the major generative AI models are not produced in this country; they are developed in highly competitive circumstances and tend to be secretive about the data used to train them. Is that an area of concern? If he thinks there are going to be more applications in the education sphere and others, should the Government take steps to ensure greater transparency about the data upon which these models are trained?

[Stephen Morgan]

I will certainly take that back. I have had discussions with colleagues at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and others about reliability, safety and biases.

In November last year, with the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), I met leading global tech firms, including Google, Microsoft and Adobe, to agree safety expectations and to ensure that AI tools are safe for classroom use. We are also supporting staff to use AI safely. In partnership with the Chiltern Learning Trust and the Chartered College of Teaching, we have published online support materials to help teachers and leaders to use AI safely and effectively, developed by the sector, for the sector. They supplement the Department’s AI policy paper—which we updated in June—alongside the information for educators about using AI safely and effectively, and the toolkit for leaders to help address the risks and opportunities of AI across their whole setting.

To develop our evidence base, we have launched two pilot programmes, the edtech evidence board and the edtech testbed. The first is to ensure that schools have the confidence to secure edtech products that work well for their setting, and the second is to evaluate the impact of edtech and AI products on improving staff workload, pupil outcomes and inclusivity. I want to assure all hon. Members that we will continue to work with schools to support them in harnessing opportunities and managing potential challenges presented by generative AI.

A number of hon. Members, including the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin), spoke about social media, and “Keeping children safe in education” is statutory guidance that provides schools and colleges with robust information on how to protect pupils and students online. The guidance has been significantly strengthened with regard to online safety, which is now embedded throughout, making clear the importance of taking a whole-school approach to keeping children safe online. The DFE is working across Government to implement the Online Safety Act 2023 and to address technology-related risks, including AI in education. I can assure the hon. Member for Guildford that it is a priority for us to ensure that children benefit from its protections.

On the point that a number of hon. Members made about the impact on qualifications, assessment and regulation, the majority of GCSE and A-level assessments are exams taken under close staff supervision, with no access to the internet. Schools, colleges and awarding organisations are continuing to take reasonable steps to prevent malpractice involving the use of generative AI in formal assessments. Ofqual is, of course, the independent regulator of qualifications and assessments, and published its approach to regulating AI use in the qualifications sector in 2024. Ofqual supported the production of guidance from the Joint Council for Qualifications on the use of AI in assessments. That guidance provides teachers and exam centres with information to help them to prevent and identify potential malpractice involving the misuse of AI.

More broadly, the curriculum and assessment review’s interim report acknowledged risks concerning AI use in coursework assessments. The review is taking a subject-by-subject approach to consider assessment fitness for purpose and the impact of different assessment methods on teaching and learning. I assure Members that the review is considering potential risks, the trade-offs with non-exam assessment such as deliverability, and the risks of malpractice and to equity.