Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps students who have their bills included in rent can take to access from the Energy Bills Support Scheme.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and impacted students. Many higher education providers have hardship funds that students can apply to for assistance.
There is £261 million of student premium funding available this academic year to support disadvantaged students who need additional help. The department has worked with the Office for Students to ensure universities support students in hardship by using hardship funds and drawing on the student premium.
In addition, all households will save on their energy bills through the Energy Price Guarantee and the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme discount. Students who buy their energy from a domestic supplier are eligible for the energy bills discount. The Energy Prices Bill introduced on 12 October includes the provision to require landlords to pass benefits they receive from energy price support, as appropriate, onto end users. Further details of the requirements under this legislation will be set out in regulations.
Students whose bills are included in their rent, including energy charges, will typically have agreed their accommodation costs upfront when signing their contract for the current academic year. Businesses, including those that provide student accommodation, are covered by the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which provides energy bill relief for non-domestic customers in Great Britain.
A HM Treasury-led review will be launched to consider how to support households and businesses with energy bills after April 2023.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools have been retro-fitted to improve energy efficiency since 2019.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities and other responsible bodies carry out regular improvement works at schools across the country. The Department does not hold central records of all these individual projects. Since 2019 the Condition Improvement Fund has provided funding for 5,036 projects at eligible schools and sixth form colleges.
In addition to this, between 1 January 2019 and 1 October 2022, 230 schools were rebuilt or significantly refurbished under the Priority School Building Programme, a Department funded and delivered school building condition improvement programme. All projects adhered to the Department’s design specification for schools and improved their energy efficiency.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of electric heaters bought for use in schools since 2019.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is not held centrally. The Department does not buy centrally on behalf of schools, so does not hold the information about the number of electric heaters that have been bought since 2019. Schools are autonomous and have the freedom to make their own buying decisions based on individual needs and circumstances.
More information on buying guidance and procedures for schools is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/buying-procedures-and-procurement-law-for-schools.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential impact of the cost of living crisis on the number of children living in poverty who are not eligible for free school meals.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The department does not currently have any plans to assess the potential impact of the cost of living crisis on the number of children living in poverty who are not eligible for free school meals (FSM). However, the department continues to monitor the rising cost of living whilst working with other government departments on support surrounding this issue and the department will continue to keep FSM eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who most need them. In setting a threshold, the government believes that the current level, which enables children to benefit from FSM, while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools, is the right one.
The latest published statistics show that around 1.9 million pupils are claiming FSM. This equates to 22.5% of all pupils, up from 20.8% in 2021. Together with a further 1.25 million infants supported through the Universal Infant Free School Meal policy, the greatest ever proportion of school children, 37.5%, are now provided with FSM.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to reduce the number of school places offered on a faith basis.
Answered by Robin Walker
Church and faith schools represent a third of all state-funded schools. The department values the contribution that they make to a diverse school system.
Faith schools have played a longstanding and important role in our education system. Faith schools are popular with parents, with many being high-performing and are more likely to be rated good or outstanding by Ofsted than non-faith schools. New academies and free schools that have a faith designation must allow for a minimum of 50% of places to be allocated to children without reference to faith where the school is oversubscribed.
In 2018, the department published ‘Secondary school choice and selection: insights from new national preferences data’. The report found evidence that the smaller proportion of disadvantaged and minority ethnic pupils attending church schools compared to other schools was a result of a range of factors, including admissions oversubscription criteria, as well as parental preference.
The department expects all schools, including faith schools, to be open and inclusive. All schools, including faith schools, must ensure that their admission arrangements are fair and objective, and that the arrangements will not disadvantage unfairly a child from a particular social or racial group.
Many faith schools are oversubscribed, showing that parents value and want these schools. The department also understands that the ability to prioritise children of faith when oversubscribed is important to faith schools and we do not intend to change that.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he had made an assessment of the potential impact of religious selection on socioeconomic inclusion in schools.
Answered by Robin Walker
Church and faith schools represent a third of all state-funded schools. The department values the contribution that they make to a diverse school system.
Faith schools have played a longstanding and important role in our education system. Faith schools are popular with parents, with many being high-performing and are more likely to be rated good or outstanding by Ofsted than non-faith schools. New academies and free schools that have a faith designation must allow for a minimum of 50% of places to be allocated to children without reference to faith where the school is oversubscribed.
In 2018, the department published ‘Secondary school choice and selection: insights from new national preferences data’. The report found evidence that the smaller proportion of disadvantaged and minority ethnic pupils attending church schools compared to other schools was a result of a range of factors, including admissions oversubscription criteria, as well as parental preference.
The department expects all schools, including faith schools, to be open and inclusive. All schools, including faith schools, must ensure that their admission arrangements are fair and objective, and that the arrangements will not disadvantage unfairly a child from a particular social or racial group.
Many faith schools are oversubscribed, showing that parents value and want these schools. The department also understands that the ability to prioritise children of faith when oversubscribed is important to faith schools and we do not intend to change that.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his Department's position is in response to the recommendations of the Higher Education Policy Institute's recent report entitled Illicit drug use in universities: zero tolerance or harm reduction?, published on 3 March 2022, which calls on the education sector to drop the zero tolerance approach to illicit drug use for personal users.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This government strongly supports activity by universities and other partners to raise awareness of the harms of illicit drugs and to discourage drug misuse by young people. Illicit drugs are harmful and there is no safe way to take them.
As independent and autonomous institutions, higher education providers are responsible for their own policies in relation to illegal drugs.
Universities UK has set up a taskforce to help universities understand and address drug-use. The first meeting of the taskforce takes place this month and it will look to set out a common approach to reduce harms from drug use and to better tackle supply.
Its work will include production of evidence-led sector guidance, developed with students, staff and wider stakeholders, including recommendations based on harm reduction. The taskforce will also look to better understand supply of, demand for, and use of drugs in the UK student population, as well as make student drug use visible as a welfare and health issue.
The government’s 10-year drugs plan was published in December 2021 and is a formal, substantive response to the independent review of drugs led by Dame Carol Black. The plan includes an aim to drive behaviour change to reduce the demand for drugs, and commits to further research and testing messaging through an evidence-based, targeted behaviour change initiative, initially aimed at students in further and higher education.
The UK student-led charity Students Organising for Sustainability launched the Drug and Alcohol Impact programme in October 2020. University and students’ union partnerships were invited to sign up to a 2-year commitment to obtain accreditation under the scheme. This required achieving levels of practice in areas including knowledge and understanding of student drug use, collaboration with key stakeholders, policy changes, and harm reduction interventions.
The programme was successfully piloted with four partnerships, with two more joining in the 2021/22 academic year. It is now being scaled up.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of polices on reducing drug use on university campuses.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This government strongly supports activity by universities and other partners to raise awareness of the harms of illicit drugs and to discourage drug misuse by young people. Illicit drugs are harmful and there is no safe way to take them.
As independent and autonomous institutions, higher education providers are responsible for their own policies in relation to illegal drugs.
Universities UK has set up a taskforce to help universities understand and address drug-use. The first meeting of the taskforce takes place this month and it will look to set out a common approach to reduce harms from drug use and to better tackle supply.
Its work will include production of evidence-led sector guidance, developed with students, staff and wider stakeholders, including recommendations based on harm reduction. The taskforce will also look to better understand supply of, demand for, and use of drugs in the UK student population, as well as make student drug use visible as a welfare and health issue.
The government’s 10-year drugs plan was published in December 2021 and is a formal, substantive response to the independent review of drugs led by Dame Carol Black. The plan includes an aim to drive behaviour change to reduce the demand for drugs, and commits to further research and testing messaging through an evidence-based, targeted behaviour change initiative, initially aimed at students in further and higher education.
The UK student-led charity Students Organising for Sustainability launched the Drug and Alcohol Impact programme in October 2020. University and students’ union partnerships were invited to sign up to a 2-year commitment to obtain accreditation under the scheme. This required achieving levels of practice in areas including knowledge and understanding of student drug use, collaboration with key stakeholders, policy changes, and harm reduction interventions.
The programme was successfully piloted with four partnerships, with two more joining in the 2021/22 academic year. It is now being scaled up.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what fiscal steps he plans to take to support university and college students in the context of the the rise in cost of living.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
We are freezing maximum tuition fees for the 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By the 2024/25 academic year, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven years.
Students from the lowest-income households have access to the largest ever amounts of support for their living costs in cash terms. Maximum grants and loans for living costs were increased by 3.1% this academic year, and we have announced that they will increase by a further 2.3% next year.
Many providers have hardship funds that students can apply to for assistance should individuals’ finances be affected in academic year 2021/22.
Grant funding to the Office for Students (OfS) for the 2021/22 financial year included an allocation of £5 million to higher education providers in England in order to provide additional support for student hardship.
In our guidance to the OfS on funding for the 2021/22 financial year we made clear that the OfS should protect the £256 million allocation for the student premiums to support disadvantaged students and those that need additional help.
Advice is available from providers and from other sources online to help students manage their money while they are attending their courses.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding for SEND the Government has allocated to local authorities in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018, (e) 2019, (f) 2020 and (g) 2021.
Answered by Will Quince
The national funding formula (NFF) continues to distribute core schools funding fairly, based on the needs of schools and their pupil cohorts.
The government does not allocate specific amounts for mainstream school pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Within the total funding allocated, local authorities are required by regulations to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable them to provide additional support costing up to £6,000 for each pupil with SEND. When support costs for an individual pupil exceed £6,000 per year, the local authority provides top-up funding from its high needs budget.
High needs funding is allocated to local authorities for children and young people with more complex SEND. The total high needs funding allocations for all local authorities since the 2015-16 financial year are as follows:
Financial year | Total high needs block funding (£ million) |
2015/16 | 5,247 |
2016/17 | 5,300 |
2017/18 | 5,827 |
2018/19 | 6,115 |
2019/20 | 6,279 |
2020/21 | 7,063 |
2021/22 | 7,906 |
2022/23[1] | 8,981 |
[1] 2022/23 figures are provisional, including supplementary funding