Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect of period poverty on girls in schools.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Officials at the Department for Education are in regular contact with officials in the Department for Work and Pensions about a number of issues including sanitary protection provision in schools. Ministers responsible for these issues are kept regularly updated.
Our current sex and education guidance encourages schools to make adequate and sensitive arrangements to help girls to cope with menstruation, including requests for sanitary protection. In addition, schools teach pupils about puberty in science lessons, and many schools cover the topic through personal, social and health education. Schools have discretion over how to use their funding, and can make sanitary products available to pupils if they identify this as a barrier to attainment or attendance. We support schools in addressing the needs of disadvantaged pupils through pupil premium funding, worth almost £2.5 billion of additional funding this year alone.
The recently published analysis of absence statistics shows that while absence rates amongst girls do increase after a certain age, there is no evidence to suggest that this is related to pupils being disadvantaged. This suggests period poverty does not have a significant, nation-wide impact on attendance.
The Department for Education also collaborates closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which recently announced that through the current round of the Tampon Tax Fund the government will provide £1.5 million for the ‘Let’s Talk. Period.’ project, delivered by Brook Young People across England. The project will identify vulnerable and disadvantaged young women who struggle to afford sanitary products through the organisation’s existing community services and a network of local partners, including schools. The project will develop resources to educate girls about menstruation and hand out pre-paid cards allowing girls and young women in need to access free sanitary products at local distribution points.
We will continue to communicate on a regular basis with all interested government departments and devolved administrations as we continue to keep this issue under review.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number students in receipt of an NHS Bursary who have been incorrectly awarded a maintenance loan; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
793 Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions students are currently known to have received an overpayment of student support because of an error by the Student Loans Company (SLC).
The government announced on 18 April 2018 that the SLC will provide support to ensure that none of the students affected by the error suffer hardship.
Students affected by this error will be eligible to apply for additional, non-repayable, support of up to £1,000 for the remainder of this academic year, and should contact SLC. In addition, repayment of overpaid maintenance support will be deferred for all students affected until they have finished their courses and can afford to repay.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of people who left their undergraduate degree course for mental health reasons in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Mental health is a priority for this government. The Children and Young People’s Mental Health green paper outlines the government’s plans to set up a new national strategic partnership focused on improving the mental health of 16-25 year olds, encouraging more coordinated action, innovation and robust evaluation of mental health services. One recommendation in the green paper is for the partnership to provide a systematic strategy to improve what we know about student mental health by encouraging improvements in data linkage and analytics. Data is available from the Higher Education Statistical Agency on the number of higher education students who leave their course early for health reasons, but the data does not make it possible to distinguish mental health reasons specifically.
The department is working closely with Universities UK on the programme of work on Mental Health in Higher Education, which has included work with the Institute for Public Policy Research to strengthen the evidence-base on mental health in higher education.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to tackle loneliness and social isolation among school-aged children.
Answered by Nick Gibb
On 17 January the Government announced that my hon. Friend, the Minister for Sport and Civil Society will lead a cross-government group which will take responsibility for driving action on loneliness. The Department will work as part of the group looking at what can be done to tackle loneliness and social isolation, especially for the most vulnerable children.
The Department is funding a £700,000 pilot investigating ways to set up effective peer support for mental health and wellbeing in schools, and is also providing £1.5 million to support anti-bullying projects, such as the Diana Award Ambassador programme.
The Department is currently conducting a thorough engagement process on the scope and content of Relationships Education and Relationships and Sex Education, which will be made statutory in primary and secondary schools respectively.
The Government is also consulting on the green paper ‘Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision’ which includes further proposals to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, supported by over £300 million of funding. The green paper is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/transforming-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-provision-a-green-paper.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the number of children who are at risk of experiencing hunger during the school Christmas holidays in 2017.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The department has made no assessment of the number of children who are at risk of experiencing hunger during school Christmas holidays in 2017.
We are currently giving full consideration to the School Holidays (Meals and Activities) Bill, which considers this issue, and will be responding in due course.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure adequate funding for maintained nursery schools; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
There is a presumption against the closure of maintained nursery schools. Before a nursery school may close the local authority must set out in a statement their assessment of the quality and quantity of the alternative provision; proposed arrangements to ensure that the expertise and specialism provided by the maintained nursery school continues to be available; and the accessibility and convenience of replacement provision for local parents.
We are also providing local authorities with supplementary funding of £55 million per year to enable them to maintain existing levels of nursery school funding at least to the end of this Parliament. We are currently carrying out a data assurance exercise to ensure local authorities receive the correct amount of supplementary funding.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to protect maintained nursery schools from closure.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
There is a presumption against the closure of maintained nursery schools. Before a nursery school may close the local authority must set out in a statement their assessment of the quality and quantity of the alternative provision; proposed arrangements to ensure that the expertise and specialism provided by the maintained nursery school continues to be available; and the accessibility and convenience of replacement provision for local parents.
We are also providing local authorities with supplementary funding of £55 million per year to enable them to maintain existing levels of nursery school funding at least to the end of this Parliament. We are currently carrying out a data assurance exercise to ensure local authorities receive the correct amount of supplementary funding.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy for first aid and CPR to be taught in all schools.
Answered by Edward Timpson
All schools are required to teach a balanced and broadly based curriculum that prepares pupils for adult life. The new national curriculum focuses on the essential knowledge so that teachers can design a wider school curriculum that best meets the needs of their pupils.
Many schools already choose to include CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and defibrillator awareness as part of their PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) teaching. The non-statutory PSHE programme of study produced by the PSHE Association, teaches young people how to recognise and follow health and safety procedures, ways of reducing risk and minimising harm in risky situations, and how to use emergency and basic first aid.
Many schools also make use of organisations such as the Red Cross and St John Ambulance, to provide information to young people about first aid and dealing with emergencies.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people with a home postcode in (a) the West Midlands, (b) Birmingham and (c) Birmingham, Northfield constituency have undertaken an apprenticeship in each of the last 10 academic years.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The attached table shows how many apprenticeships were started in the West Midlands, Birmingham and the Birmingham Northfield constituency in each of the last 10 academic years.
Different regional level data are published online at:
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many higher-education students are living in (a) Birmingham and (b) Birmingham, Northfield constituency.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Statistics identifying the term-time address of higher education students can only be provided at disproportionate cost. However, Table 3 of the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) Statistical First Release (SFR) entitled ‘Higher education student enrolments and qualifications obtained at higher education providers in the United Kingdom 2014/15’ shows that there were 76,140 enrolments at higher education institutions (HEIs) in Birmingham[1] in the academic year 2014/15. The SFR is available at the following link:
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/14-01-2016/sfr224-enrolments-and-qualifications
[1] The count includes higher education enrolments at undergraduate and postgraduate level from all countries of domicile at Aston University, Birmingham City University, The University of Birmingham, University College Birmingham and Newman University.