Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with the student local company on levels of interest applied to student loans; and whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of those levels on graduates’ disposable income and long-term repayment outcomes.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Interest rates are set in legislation in reference to the Retail Price Index and applied annually from 1 September. The Student Loans Company applies interest accordingly. Student loans are subject to interest so that those who can afford to do so contribute to the full cost of their degree.
Interest rates on student loans do not affect monthly repayments made by borrowers. Regular repayments are based on a fixed percentage of earnings above the applicable student loan repayment threshold. Any outstanding debt, including interest built up, is written off after the loan term ends (or in case of death or disability) at no detriment to the borrower.
A full equality impact assessment of how the student loan reforms may affect graduates, including detail on changes to average lifetime repayments under Plan 5, was produced and published under the previous government in February 2022 and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-education-reform-equality-impact-assessment.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for the total spend on (i) LinkedIn membership fees (ii) other subscriptions by her Department in the last financial year.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
During the period of 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, the department spent £0.00 on LinkedIn membership fees.
During the same period, the department and its executive agencies spent £274,988.24 on services that fit the broad description of ‘subscription’.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff in their Department have been on mental health leave for six months or more; and for what reason.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department records sickness absence categorised to show the broad reason for the absence, with one option titled ‘anxiety, stress, depression and other psychiatric illnesses’. As of 31 October 2025, five or fewer members of staff in the department were on sickness absence for six months or more, and were still absent on that date, with a recorded reason for the sickness absence of ‘anxiety, stress, depression and other psychiatric illnesses’. Due to the small numbers involved, figures are rounded to the nearest five and are not reported separately. The department does not hold more detailed information on the individual circumstances of these cases.
Statistics on mental ill-health related absence across the Civil Service, including for the department, are publicly available in the Civil Service sickness absence reports on GOV.UK. These are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sickness-absence. The next release is due on 18 December.
The department is committed to supporting staff wellbeing and provides a range of services, including occupational health support, access to an Employee Assistance Programme, and trained Mental Health First Aiders.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, to provide a breakdown in the total value of student loan repayments received by (i) non-UK nationals and (ii) UK nationals in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The following table gives the Student Loan Company (SLC) payments in millions for the 2020/21 to 2024/25 financial years and covers Fee Loans and Maintenance Loans (full time and part time) for undergraduates only domiciled in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the EU (Scotland's applications are not administered by SLC). These figures are split by the UK National indicator on the application form. Student support eligibility is determined by residency and not nationality and the UK National indicator field on the application form can be left blank by the applicant.
| Payments (£ million) | |||
|
|
| ||
Financial Year | UK National indicator | Non-UK National | Unknown | Grand Total |
2020/21 | 16,358.5 | 2,395.3 | 341.8 | 19,095.7 |
2021/22 | 16,832.2 | 2,798.7 | 442.7 | 20,073.6 |
2022/23 | 16,690.2 | 3,069.9 | 551.7 | 20,311.8 |
2023/24 | 16,534.0 | 3,360.9 | 643.2 | 20,538.1 |
2024/25 | 16,605.7 | 3,770.5 | 706.2 | 21,082.4 |
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, to provide a breakdown of (i) the total number (ii) the age of children taken into care in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The latest figures on the number of children taken into care for reasons of court orders or police protection, emergency or child assessment orders in England by age are shown in the attached table.
The latest figures on all children starting to be looked after in England by legal status and separately by age is published in the statistical release: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2025#explore-data-and-files.
The table can be located at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a70a7aef-adc9-46be-b94b-08de28d609b2.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many non-British people received 15 hours of free childcare in the last financial year.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The requested information on nationality is not held by the department.
Information on children under 5 registered for government funded entitlements in England and on providers and staff delivering them, is published in the ‘Funded early education and childcare statistics’ publication, which can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/funded-early-education-and-childcare/2025.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of waiving fines for parents judged to be responsible by the headteacher for taking their children out of school during term for holidays.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department has no plans to review our approach to term-time holidays. Schools can grant pupils a leave of absence for exceptional circumstances at their discretion, judging each application on the specific facts. However, generally a holiday would not constitute an exceptional circumstance. The school year is structured in a way that provides plenty of time for holidays outside of term-time. Schools and local authorities also have considerable flexibility to plan term dates themselves, and hold inset days and other occasional days at quieter times of the year, helping families to plan breaks at times that suit them.
Where term-time holidays are taken without permission, it is right that the law protects children’s right to a full-time education. The national framework for penalty notices is designed to improve fairness by ensuring they are considered at a consistent point across the country, and on an individual basis, preventing schools from having blanket rules.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will consider updating guidance to allow headteachers to use their own discretion to allow parents to take their children out of school for holidays during term time.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department has no plans to review our approach to term-time holidays. Schools can grant pupils a leave of absence for exceptional circumstances at their discretion, judging each application on the specific facts. However, generally a holiday would not constitute an exceptional circumstance. The school year is structured in a way that provides plenty of time for holidays outside of term-time. Schools and local authorities also have considerable flexibility to plan term dates themselves, and hold inset days and other occasional days at quieter times of the year, helping families to plan breaks at times that suit them.
Where term-time holidays are taken without permission, it is right that the law protects children’s right to a full-time education. The national framework for penalty notices is designed to improve fairness by ensuring they are considered at a consistent point across the country, and on an individual basis, preventing schools from having blanket rules.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has provided funding to universities for schemes that exclude white applicants.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has not directly awarded funding to any such schemes within higher education.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has had correspondence with Wandsworth Council on external-speaker sessions in local schools on (a) migration and (b) asylum since January 2024.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Under sections 406 and 407 of the Equality Act 1996, schools must not promote partisan political views and should ensure that pupils are provided with a balanced treatment of political issues.
To support this, the department has published comprehensive guidance to support schools to meet their duties on political impartiality. This is accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools/political-impartiality-in-schools.
The guidance states that all schools should thoroughly assess external agencies before agreeing to work with them, ensuring that the external agencies used, including materials and communication with pupils, are appropriate and adhere to schools’ legal duties on political impartiality.
The guidance also sets out that most issues can be resolved locally through their existing processes for engaging with parents, carers and the wider school community, and that schools should treat concerns seriously.
Additionally, all schools and colleges must have regard to the ‘Keeping children safe in education’ statutory guidance when carrying out their duties, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
The department has not had any contact with Quality First Education Trust or Wandsworth Council on these issues.