Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will list the free schools that have opened since 2011 by (a) type of school, (b) opening date and (c) closing date.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department publishes information about open free schools, including the date they opened. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-academies-and-academy-projects-in-development.
On the Get Information about Schools site, it is possible, by using the filter of ‘free schools’ and ‘closed’ in a search function, to bring up a list of all free schools that are now closed. The site is available at: https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Search?SelectedTab=Establishments.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) primary mainstream, (b) primary alternative provision, (c) secondary mainstream and (d) secondary alternative provision schools were academies on 4 March 2024.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
As of 4 March 2024, there are 7,223 mainstream primary academies and 12 alternative provision primary academies. There are 2,867 mainstream secondary academies and 151 alternative provision secondary academies.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools were converted to (a) primary converter, (b) primary sponsored, (c) secondary converter and (d) secondary sponsored academies in each year from 2008 to 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Between January 2008 and December 2023, 9,345 schools opened as primary converter academies, primary sponsored academies, secondary converter academies and secondary sponsored academies. A breakdown of this information by calendar year is given the following table:
| Primary | Secondary | ||
Converter | Sponsored | Converter | Sponsored | |
2008 |
|
|
| 47 |
2009 |
|
|
| 70 |
2010 | 25 |
| 68 | 68 |
2011 | 309 | 5 | 724 | 48 |
2012 | 423 | 171 | 366 | 76 |
2013 | 424 | 291 | 132 | 84 |
2014 | 393 | 264 | 68 | 56 |
2015 | 380 | 190 | 51 | 62 |
2016 | 545 | 148 | 64 | 34 |
2017 | 621 | 190 | 80 | 47 |
2018 | 604 | 162 | 64 | 44 |
2019 | 442 | 98 | 45 | 25 |
2020 | 198 | 59 | 21 | 17 |
2021 | 254 | 40 | 28 | 16 |
2022 | 258 | 44 | 22 | 13 |
2023 | 272 | 53 | 32 | 10 |
Table 1: Converter and sponsored academies opened between 2008 and 2023.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many free schools were opened in each year from 2011 to 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department publishes information about open free schools, including the date they opened. This information is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-academies-and-academy-projects-in-development.
The attached table provides the number of free schools opened each year from 2011 to 2023. This includes primary, secondary, all through and 16-19 age ranges of the following types of free schools: mainstream free schools, alternative provision free schools, special free schools and specialist maths schools. University technical colleges and Studio schools have been listed separately.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many pupils were entered for GCSE qualifications in (a) English Literature, (b) French, (c) Spanish, (d) German, (e) Italian, (f) History, (g) Geography, (h) Art & Design, (i) Music, (j) Drama, (k) Religious Education, (l) Combined Science, (m) Chemistry, (n) Physics, (o) Biology, (p) Computer Science in each year from 2008 to 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The number of GCSE entries by pupils at the end of key stage 4 in the requested subjects can be found in the attached spreadsheet.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress he has made in moving from a National Funding Formula for schools to a direct funding formula.
Answered by Jonathan Gullis
The Government remains firmly committed to completing our reforms to the national school funding system, and introducing a direct national funding formula.
This will mean that each mainstream school is allocated funding on the same basis, wherever it is in the country, and every child can be given the same opportunities, based on a consistent assessment of their needs.
The Department is moving carefully towards the direct national funding formula over the coming years, working with the sector to ensure that the transition is a smooth one. From 2023-24, local authorities will have to move their own funding formulae closer to the national funding formula as part of our step-by-step approach to transition. Local minimum funding guarantee protections will remain in place to maintain stability for schools and protect them from sudden drops in pupil-led per-pupil funding.
We are also continuing to develop the schools national funding formula to allocate funding nationally in line with our recent consultation: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/implementing-the-direct-national-funding-formula/supporting_documents/Implementing%20the%20direct%20national%20funding%20formula%20%20government%20consultation.pdf. The Department's response will be published in due course.
The Department will also provide an update on the Schools Bill in due course.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 20 September to Question 45259, how many people were given immigration status 3C leave in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021, and (d) January to September 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not hold this information.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many notifiable acquisition applications under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 have been made since 4 January 2022.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Government published the National Security and Investment Act’s first Annual Report on 16 June 2022. This report covers the first 3 months of the system operating from 4 January 2022 to 31 March 2022. The report states that, in this period, the Investment Security Unit received a total of 196 mandatory notifications. The 2023 Annual Report will provide data on notifications received in the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the passport advice line.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Passport Adviceline continues to be an integral part of the wider passport service, helping to ensure that customer queries are resolved as quickly as possible. Between January and August this year, approximately 3 million calls were answered by the Passport Adviceline.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has taken steps to shorten the waiting times for people who call the passport advice line.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
His Majesty’s Passport Office has worked closely with Teleperformance to improve waiting times for callers to the Passport Adviceline. In August, the average wait time for a caller was 6 seconds.