Asked by: Katie White (Labour - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to improve student access to apprenticeships.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
There is a range of support available to increase access to apprenticeships for students across England.
The department promotes apprenticeships to young people through the Skills for Life campaign and the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network (AAN). The AAN, which has around 2,000 volunteers, aims to champion apprenticeships for young people by aligning an ambassador to every state-funded secondary school and further education college by March 2026. As of May 2025, the AAN covers 75% of schools and colleges in England.
We are further increasing access to apprenticeships for young people by introducing new foundation apprenticeships from August 2025. Foundation apprenticeships, which are jobs with training at level 2, will support young people to transition from full-time education to work, providing entry level competence in sectors such as construction and engineering.
Foundation apprenticeships are underpinned by an employer incentive payment of £2,000 to contribute to the costs of supporting someone at the beginning of their career. Additionally, the government provides £1,000 to employers and providers for apprentices aged 16 to 18, or 19 to 24 for care leavers or those with an education, health and care plan. We also offer a bursary of £3,000 for apprentices under 25 who are care leavers.
Asked by: Katie White (Labour - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to (a) ensure that AI sources used in schools are (i) accurate and (ii) credible and (b) support children to use AI effectively.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has published product safety expectations for generative artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure AI tools are safe for classroom use. The expectations set out clear technical safeguards, including prioritising child-centred design and enhanced filtering of harmful content.
The Education Content Store pilot aims to generate high-quality underpinning content and data needed for high-quality AI tools. By making pre-processed educational content available, the store aims to improve the accuracy of AI tools.
Additionally, online resources and guidance materials are also available to help teachers and leaders use AI safely and effectively, and these materials were published in June 2025.
Finally, the department recently appointed a task and finish group to advise on digital, AI and technology. We will consider how best to develop and implement any of their recommendations. This includes those which aim to prepare children and young people to be ready for an AI and tech-enabled world.
Asked by: Katie White (Labour - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of designating care leavers as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of that designation on opportunities for care leavers.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to enabling all children and young people to achieve and thrive. To ensure we are providing the best support for children in care and care leavers we have tabled an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which introduces corporate parenting responsibilities on government departments and relevant public bodies to ensure that services and support to children in care and care leavers better take account of the challenges these young people face.
Whilst we currently have no plans to update the Equality Act, we believe our corporate parenting proposals will serve to tackle the stigma and discrimination that we know children in care and care leavers experience.
The department knows that care leavers have some of the worst outcomes in society across all aspects of their lives and we are committed to ensuring that young people leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong, loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.
To support these ambitions, the department has re-established a Care Leaver Ministerial Board, chaired by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which brings together ministers from key departments to improve support for care leavers across government.
The department has also introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to drive forward our reforms on children’s social care, including placing new duties on local authorities to provide ‘Staying Close’ support to care leavers up to the age of 25 and requiring each local authority to publish information about the arrangements it has in place to support care leavers in their transition to independent living.
We are determined to tackle the stigma and discrimination faced by care-experienced young people, by creating a culture where all those who play a role in the lives of children in care and care leavers are ambitious for their outcomes.