Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of reductions in funding for the Primary PE and Sport Premium from the 2025-26 to the 2026-27 financial year on participation in physical education and school sport in primary schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government is investing over £1 billion for PE and school sport over the next three years, including £530 million for a new PE and School Sport Partnerships Network, alongside investment in facilities and £150 million transitional funding for primary schools in 2026/27. The new partnerships will strengthen links between schools and local clubs and National Governing Bodies, to deliver high quality PE for every child and remove barriers to participation for less active children.
Detailed design and funding allocations will be confirmed through the procurement process.
This builds on the £67 billion core funding we are providing to schools this year, ensuring they have the resources they need to deliver for pupils.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department is providing to local education authorities with place planning following recent trends in birth rates.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to ensure there are enough school places available in their area for every child of compulsory school age. We expect local authorities, academy trusts and local partners to engage collaboratively and constructively with to balance the supply and demand of school places, in line with changing demographics locally.
We recognise that demographic change requires local areas to adapt to changing demand for school places. As announced in our Education Estates Strategy, we are supporting local areas to plan strategically by developing a local decision-making framework for the use of school space through demographic change, with publication expected in Autumn 2026. This will aim to increase transparency over decision making and supporting early strategic conversations with local partners and the department, to provide support to schools and communities as early as possible.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act has introduced new measures that enable greater local collaboration on pupil admissions between local authorities and schools.
This includes a measure to enable the Schools Adjudicator, in cases where they uphold an objection to a school’s published admission number (PAN), to specify what it should be. School quality and parental preference will be key considerations in any decision on PAN.
We have also introduced new duties for mainstream state schools and local authorities to co-operate regarding their respective school admissions functions, and for mainstream, special and alternative provision state schools to co-operate with local authorities regarding their place planning functions.
These new legislative measures strengthen the vital aspects of managing school capacity and mitigating the impacts associated with falling pupil numbers locally.
Schools are funded based on pupil numbers in the previous October census. This gives schools with falling rolls some time to re-organise staffing before their funding is affected. Falling rolls funding is also provided to local authorities for schools seeing a short-term decrease in pupil numbers. We have also broadened the scope of growth and falling rolls funding to allow local authorities to use growth funding to meet the revenue costs of removing surplus places.
Despite challenging choices over public spending, the core school budget is increasing by £1.7 billion in 2026-27. This includes funding to deliver SEND reform, which will total £4 billion over three years, to embed inclusive practice in mainstream schools.
We are also backing local areas to respond with new capital investment to repurpose surplus school space - including £400 million to create or expand thousands of additional school-based nurseries across England and £3.7 billion over five years to create tens of thousands of new places, including in mainstream schools, for children and young people with SEND.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of whether the complaints framework operated by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education is fit for purpose in the context of current (a) higher education tuition fees and (b) student consumer protections.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) for Higher Education (HE) continues to perform well despite sustained year on year increases in the number of complaints it handles. Its latest annual report shows that over 90% of complaints were closed within six months, and that the average case handling time has reduced to 81 days.
The department also welcomes also the OIA’s ongoing consultation, open until the end of July, which should help ensure it remains fit for purpose in response to the evolving HE landscape.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has considered the potential merits of the introduction of a GCSE qualification in Romanian.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government is committed to supporting the teaching of modern foreign languages in England’s schools. Decisions about which languages to offer at GCSE in England are taken by four independent awarding organisations rather than by central government: AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel, and WJEC. These organisations have the freedom to create a Romanian GCSE based on the subject content for modern foreign languages set by the department.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that proposals in the SEND White Paper do not reduce the rights of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member for Guildford to the answer of 20 January 2026 to Question 98569.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her expected timeline is for publishing the Schools White Paper including the SEND reform package.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department will publish the Schools White Paper early this year. It will set out our proposed reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system, underpinned by our belief that high standards and inclusion are two sides of the same coin.
To ensure these reforms are as effective as possible, and building on conversations to date, we launched a public engagement campaign spanning every region of the country. This put families at the heart of plans to create a reformed SEND system that will stand the test of time.
As part of this campaign, I have hosted regional face-to-face events across the country, run in partnership with the Council for Disabled Children. The department also set up a number of online events, including a panel of experts, in discussions covering the department’s five principles of reform. Further details can be found at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/send-reform-national-conversation/.
The experiences and insights shared during these engagement opportunities will be vital in ensuring that our proposals effectively deliver meaningful reforms for families.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with teaching unions on the role of schools and education settings in the development and implementation of the Government’s strategy on tackling violence against women and girls.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy recognises that we must take a whole system approach to tackle and halve VAWG in a decade. The government has undertaken stakeholder engagement to inform the development of the strategy, meeting with key sector leaders, unions, academics, police representatives, and has an established the VAWG Strategy Advisory Board.
The department meets teaching unions and school stakeholder groups regularly. We will continue this engagement as work progresses on the implementation of our contribution to the strategy, which includes a departmental investment of £11 million in further support.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what factors determined the timing between the publication of the consultation on the SEND white paper on 2 December 2025 and the first engagement event on 3 December 2025; and whether that notice period aligns with her Department’s standards for effective public consultation.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department has undertaken extensive engagement over the past year, holding more than 100 events with children, young people, parents and other stakeholders to inform our work on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The SEND national conversation, launched on 2 December, is not a formal consultation but an expansion of this ongoing engagement, designed to broaden participation and ensure parents’ voices are heard. The first events were scheduled promptly to maintain momentum and provide early opportunities for families to contribute. The Council for Disabled Children has promoted the regional engagement sessions, which are now fully subscribed, and further online events run by the department remain open for sign‑up.
A formal consultation will take place following publication of the Schools White Paper next year, in line with the department’s standards for effective public consultation, to continue the conversation on reform and gather views on specific proposals.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the level of compliance of Multi Academy Trusts with statutory guidance on charging for school-time activities, including WOW days, curriculum-required trips and transport to compulsory swimming lessons.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The Education Act 1996 prohibits schools from charging for education provided during school hours, subject to very limited exceptions. The department publishes guidance to assist schools to comply with the law on charging for school activities. Parents who have concerns about their school’s charging policy should raise this with the school. They may be able to complain to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, if they remain unsatisfied once they have exhausted the school’s complaints procedure.
The department has a strong policy presumption against the disposal of school playing fields and has a set of criteria used to assess applications for consent. These include assessing whether the school can continue to meet its curriculum needs. The department gives consent only if the criteria are met, and where the proceeds from sales are to be reinvested in improvements to sports and education facilities.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the incidence of academy trusts undertaking new capital projects on school playing fields while requesting parental contributions for curriculum activities that schools are not permitted to charge for.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The Education Act 1996 prohibits schools from charging for education provided during school hours, subject to very limited exceptions. The department publishes guidance to assist schools to comply with the law on charging for school activities. Parents who have concerns about their school’s charging policy should raise this with the school. They may be able to complain to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, if they remain unsatisfied once they have exhausted the school’s complaints procedure.
The department has a strong policy presumption against the disposal of school playing fields and has a set of criteria used to assess applications for consent. These include assessing whether the school can continue to meet its curriculum needs. The department gives consent only if the criteria are met, and where the proceeds from sales are to be reinvested in improvements to sports and education facilities.