Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what is her Department's policy on the renewal of the holiday activities food programme beyond the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The holiday activities and food (HAF) programme supports disadvantaged children and their families with enriching activities, providing them with healthy food, helping them to learn new things, improving socialisation and benefitting their health and wellbeing during school holidays.
The HAF programme, although aimed at those children in receipt of benefits related free school meals (FSM), is not exclusively for them. As set out in the HAF guidance, while the majority of funding that local authorities receive should be used for holiday club places for children in receipt of FSM, local authorities have discretion to use up to 15% of their funding to provide free or subsidised holiday club places for children who are not in receipt of benefits-related FSM, but who the local authority believe could benefit from HAF provision. Local authorities are responsible for understanding the needs of the children and families in their area and ensuring that the programme reaches those who need it.
Funding beyond March 2026 will be determined in the next government spending review.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of increasing the qualifying earnings threshold for free school meals on levels of child poverty in (a) Truro and Falmouth constituency, (b) the south west and (c) England.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty by tackling the root causes and giving every child the best start in life. To support this, a new Ministerial taskforce has been set up to begin work on a Child Poverty Strategy, co-chaired by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
The continued provision of free school meals (FSM) to disadvantaged children also plays an important role in this. In total, this government spends around £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for 2.1 million school-age pupils under benefits-based FSM, and a further 1.3 million infant pupils under the universal infant free school meal scheme to ensure they receive a nutritious lunch. This includes 16,781 eligible pupils in Truro and Falmouth and 158,794 pupils in the South West.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support rural and regional universities to access funding.
Answered by Janet Daby
Providers in rural and regional locations are important in supporting their local economies and driving the growth of skills in those areas.
Providers registered with the Office for Students (OfS) and in the ‘Approved (fee cap)’ category of registration, including those located in rural and regional areas, are allocated targeted grant funding through the Strategic Priorities Grant (SPG). The government provides this funding on an annual basis to support teaching and students in higher education, including expensive-to-deliver subjects, such as science and engineering and for students at risk of discontinuing their studies. Of the £1.4 billion recurrent funding distributed by the OfS for the 2024/25 academic year, more than two-thirds is being directed to support the provision of high-cost courses.
Falmouth University, which makes an important local and regional contribution, is in receipt of SPG funding for the 2024/25 academic year.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of permitting pay-as-you-save soft loans from community energy enterprises into solar panels on schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This government continues to look for opportunities to support schools in the growth of renewables in order to reduce emissions and energy bills. Options like Great British Energy’s scheme, which will provide funding to put rooftop solar panels on around 200 schools, provide a way forward.
The department has considered the soft solar loan scheme models being offered by community energy enterprises. However, commercial loans by schools impact on public debt, and broader fiscal considerations at this time around accountability and achieving best value for investment mean schemes of this type cannot currently be supported.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure the sustainability of funding for maintained nursery schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has been clear in her commitment to early years. Despite tough decisions to get our public finances back on track, this government has increased investment in the early years sector to drive forward progress towards our Plan for Change target of a record number of children starting school ready to learn.
In the 2025/26 financial year alone, this government plans to spend over £8 billion on early years entitlements. The department has also announced the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, increasing the rate by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, raising it to the equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year.
On top of this the department is providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant to support the sector to provide the additional places and workforce needed by September 2025.
The department is also providing £25 million through the Employer National Insurance Contributions Grant for public sector employers in early years, which includes maintained nursery schools (MNS).
As part of the overall early years budget, the department expects to spend £92.6 million in MNS supplementary funding in the 2025/26 financial year, in recognition of the additional costs MNS face. The national average hourly rate for MNS supplementary funding will increase from £5.27 in the 2024/25 financial year to £5.90 in the 2025/26 financial year.
The department has introduced a minimum and maximum hourly rate that a local authority can receive for their MNS to create a fairer distribution of funding. For 2025/26, the supplementary funding minimum hourly rate for MNS will be set at £5.27.
MNS supplementary funding is just as secure over the long term as all the other early years funding streams.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the introduction of menstrual well-being education in the statutory guidance entitled Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education, published on 9 July 2020, on school leavers' knowledge of endometriosis.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
While the department has not made an assessment of the impact of learning about menstrual wellbeing as part of statutory health education, it is beneficial for pupils to understand the features of a healthy menstrual cycle, be able to recognise when things are not right and know when to seek help.
The department is currently reviewing the relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance and is looking carefully at the consultation responses, considering the relevant evidence and engaging with stakeholders before setting out next steps. This includes considering whether any additional content is needed, including on menstrual wellbeing and endometriosis.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of changing school registration forms to enable teachers to identify children born prematurely who are more at risk of special educational needs.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The government does not require schools to request information from parents about whether their child was born prematurely. It does, however, expect them to put the right support in place for each child, taking account of their individual needs and schools may wish to seek this information in order to do so.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department holds data on (a) apprenticeship completion rates and (b) apprenticeship completion rates for apprentices with one or more Functional Skills Qualifications requirements.
Answered by Janet Daby
The apprenticeship ‘National achievement rate tables’, which includes achievement rates, are published in the Apprenticeships statistics publication: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships/2023-24.
The department does not hold information on apprenticeship achievement rates for apprenticeships with specific functional skills qualifications requirements.
In November 2024, indicative achievement rates for apprenticeships where an English and/or mathematics component aim was present were published here: https://content.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/api/releases/bfd06312-7732-41bc-97e7-94a6d85d2400/files/ffbc3754-8edb-4110-96af-1c1558f185bf. There was an indicative achievement rate of 42% for apprenticeship standards where an English and/or mathematics aim was taken alongside an apprenticeship in the 2022/23 year.
Please note:
(1) The 42% figure is not directly comparable with those published in the National achievement rate tables and is indicative only. For all apprenticeship standards for 2022/23 the achievement rate was 54%.
(2) English/mathematics aims include some that are not Functional Skills Qualifications.
(3) The department cannot differentiate between English/mathematics aims that are taken as a mandatory requirement of the apprenticeship and those that are not.
(4) Wider functional skills qualifications (i.e. Digital Functional Skills) are not included in these figures.
(5) 2022/23 is the Hybrid End Year. The Hybrid End Year is the later of the Achievement Year, Expected End Year, Actual End Year or Reporting Year of a programme.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure funding is made available for skills programmes that provide pre-engineering training for young people.
Answered by Janet Daby
All young people should have access to high-quality education and training that meets their needs and provides them with opportunities to thrive.
Over £7 billion of 16-19 programme funding will be invested during academic year 2024/25, to ensure there is a place in education or training for every 16- to 18-year-old who wants one. The department calculates the basic funding for institutions using lagged student volumes and funding rates, which depend on the size of their students’ study programmes or T Levels. These rates are regardless of which type of institution they study at or what they study.
The Adult Skills Fund (ASF) is worth £1.34 billion this year, and funds education and skills training for those 19 and above to help them gain the skills they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. Learners aged 19-23 can get their first full level 2 and level 3 fully funded under the ASF legal entitlements.
For the 2024/25 academic year we have introduced five new funding rates that apply to the ESFA funded ASF. Under these new funding rates, 78% of qualifications are seeing an increase in funding.
The government’s reformed growth and skills levy will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers, including through new foundation apprenticeships that will give more young people a foot in the door and will support clear pathways into work-based training and employment.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of a requirement for local authorities to have a local offer for kinship care on the lines of those that required for care leavers and disabled children.
Answered by Janet Daby
Local authorities have been expected to publish a policy detailing their approach towards meeting the needs and supporting children living in kinship care since the Family and Friends Care guidance was published in 2011. The department will soon be releasing updated guidance, called Kinship Care statutory guidance, which will restate that requirement.