Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

13. What her planned timetable is for decision on existing free school applications.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)]

As was mentioned earlier, the Government took the sensible, pragmatic decision to pause a number of free school applications in order to consider real concerns about value for money and to make sure new places are created in parts of the country that need them.

[Paul Holmes]

Parents and pupils deserve a school system that builds on success, not one that holds it back. The coalition Government opened 24 free schools in 500 days, yet this Government have spent over 400 days reviewing 44 already-approved schools. Free schools outperform non-selective state schools at every key stage, so why are this Government blocking more children from accessing a good education?

[Josh MacAlister]

There is a very simple answer to that question: the last Government left us with crumbling school buildings and a limited capital budget to allocate across the entire school estate. We have to balance rebuilding crumbling school buildings—which, as the National Audit Office and others have highlighted, were in a deteriorated state—with the need to prioritise extra school places in parts of the country that need them. That is what the country expects from us.