Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support schools experiencing falling pupil rolls.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The department recognises that demographic change requires local areas to adapt to changing demand for school places.

Schools are funded on the basis of pupil numbers in the previous October census. This gives schools with falling rolls some time to reorganise staffing before their funding is affected.

Falling rolls funding is also provided to local authorities for schools seeing a short-term decrease in pupil numbers. We have also broadened the scope of growth and falling rolls funding to allow local authorities to use growth funding to meet the revenue costs of removing surplus places.

As announced in our Education Estates Strategy, we are also supporting local areas to plan budgets strategically. We are developing a decision-making framework for the use of mainstream school space through demographic change, with publication expected in autumn 2026.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of AI-related professional displacement in employment across (a) the South East , (b) Eastbourne and (c) the UK.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

AI is going to reshape the world of work, with some jobs more impacted than others, but AI will also create new roles and opportunities.

Our recent assessment of AI capabilities and its impact on the labour market highlighted IMF estimates that around 70% of UK workers are in exposed occupations. Half of these exposed workers are in ‘high complementarity’ roles with the other half in roles where AI may be more likely to perform tasks currently delivered by human labour. To date however, there is little conclusive evidence demonstrating a causal link between AI impacts and a reduction in employment levels.

The Government’s new AI Economics Institute will assess both opportunities and risks under a range of scenarios. A key consideration will be whether AI gains are broadly shared across regions, income groups, sectors and generations and that the opportunities are accessible, regardless of background, gender or geography.

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