Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many apprenticeships were started by young people aged 16–24 in Great Yarmouth constituency in each of the past five years.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The number of apprenticeship starts in the Great Yarmouth constituency by age group are published in the ‘Apprenticeships’ accredited official statistics publication, which can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a9552480-ccf9-421e-95ad-08dd85738b16. These were last published in March 2025. They include full year figures covering the 2019/20 to 2023/24 academic years, and year-to-date figures for 2024/25 (August 2024 to January 2025).
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 1 April 2025 to Question 40687 on Schools: Meat, if she will take steps to ensure that parents are informed of whether meat served in school meals is halal.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government respects religious freedoms and expects schools to provide parents with all the information they need to make informed choices around school meals. Headteachers, governors and their caterers are best placed to make decisions about their school food policies, taking into account cultural, religious and special dietary needs. The department would expect any significant changes to school food to be discussed with parents.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the cost to schools of translating materials for parents with limited English in the last 12 months.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Each year, schools receive core funding from the department to cover their expenditures, which includes teacher salaries, support staff, school resources and other expenses.
The funding schools receive is not ringfenced for any specific form of expenditure and it is for each school to determine how this money will be best used to support their individual circumstances.
We do not hold any data on the cost of translation materials for parents.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) religious and (b) cultural holidays are observed by their Department.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The UK Civil Service only formally observes the government-set bank holidays.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will provide (a) evidence and (b) testimony on educational resources in schools on (i) exploitation, (ii) grooming and (iii) community sensitivity to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's private inquiry into grooming gangs.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Through relationships, sex and health education (RSHE), pupils are taught the concepts of, and laws relating to, sexual consent, sexual exploitation, abuse, grooming, coercion, harassment, rape, domestic abuse, forced marriage, honour-based violence and female genital mutilation.
Schools are responsible for ensuring lessons, materials and speakers are suitable, appropriate to the age and maturity of their pupils and sensitive to their needs. The department does not advise schools on which resources or external speakers and organisations to use and we do not endorse or promote third-party resources to schools other than those produced by government departments.
Schools are required to share information concerning their curriculum with parents, including for RSHE.
Schools are also required to consult parents in advance on their relationships and sex education policies. The statutory guidance is clear that this should include sharing examples of the materials they plan to use.
The department is currently reviewing the statutory RSHE curriculum for primary and secondary pupils, and is analysing consultation responses, talking to stakeholders and considering relevant evidence before setting out next steps.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department instructs schools to inform parents of whether meat served in school meals comes from non-stunned slaughter.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government sets out required minimum standards for school food in the School Food Standards, to ensure that children are served healthy, nutritious meals at school. The standards do not specify food requirements in terms of cultural or religious needs.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the value was of student loans that were written off in 2024; and what this was as a proportion of all outstanding student loans.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The table below shows the amount that has been cancelled or written off during the most recent financial year, (2023/24) and the proportion that write offs or cancellations make out of the starting balance.
| 2023/24 Financial Year |
Amount cancelled or written off during the financial year (£ million) | 101.1 |
Percentage of those written off out of total amount outstanding | 0.05% |
The reasons for cancelled or written off loans are the following: death of borrower, age of borrower, disability, trivial balances, losses through fraud, including phishing, and other.
Write-offs do not include trivial balance write-offs. Trivial balance write-offs occur if there is a +/- balance on an account of £25 or less and no contact can be established with the borrower. Customers can request for this to be reversed. In the context of these figures, these borrowers are considered fully repaid and are therefore not included. Cancellations involve the clearance of the remaining debt in line with the terms of the loan, for example, when reaching a specific age or becoming permanently disabled. Write-offs for bankruptcy, Individual Voluntary Arrangement or a trust deed, are no longer allowed against Student Loans balances. Any figures arise from retrospective clear up exercises.
These figures have been taken from Student Loans Company’s Student loans in England publication, which is updated in June each year. The publication, ‘Student loans in England: 2023 to 2024’ can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/student-loans-in-england-2023-to-2024.
Information on the 2024/25 financial year will be available in the June 2025 publication.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish a breakdown of student loan recipients by nationality in each of the last five years.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Attached is a table that breaks down unique students in receipt of tuition fee loans and/or student support scheme income contingent loans (such as maintenance loans) by nationality for the 2019/20 to 2023/24 academic years.
Nationality is an optional field for borrowers to fill out when they are applying for student finance, which is why the data contains ‘unknown’ records. The department has seen a downward trend in the number of ‘unknown’ records in recent years, which could be due to people moving towards digital rather than paper applications, as the digital application has a drop-down menu for nationality making it easier for applicants to select the relevant option.
Please note, when compared to published figures, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/student-support-for-higher-education-in-england-2024, total numbers of borrowers in receipt of tuition fee and maintenance loans will differ to this dataset as we are counting unique borrowers. Furthermore, the data is not fully static and data can be updated or re-categorised over time.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of medical school places are occupied by non-UK nationals.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is responsible for collecting and publishing data on the UK higher education sector. These data are shared with the department and include a wide range of information on students in UK higher education providers (HEPs), including their legal nationality.
In the 2022/23 academic year, there were 84,230 student enrolments in medicine and dentistry subjects at UK HEPs, of which 19,990 held a legal nationality other than British or dual-British nationality, representing 24.7% of those with known legal nationality.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish the total cost to the public purse for the provision of diversity, equality and inclusion courses for staff in her Department in 2024.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department spent £190,000 on diversity and inclusion learning and development courses in 2024, defined as courses where the main theme of the training is diversity, equality and inclusion.