Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of college provision for construction courses in Surrey Heath constituency.

We have established 10 Construction Technical Excellence Colleges (CTECs), one for each region of the country and one cross-regional CTEC. These CTECs will work with all construction providers and other key stakeholders across their region to deliver on the objectives of the CTEC programme, which includes boosting construction skills provision in direct response to local and national employer needs.

North Kent College is the CTEC for the south-east and will be working across the region to deliver on the objectives of the programme.

We recognise that many colleges have waiting lists for construction courses, so the department is investing £195 million capital funding announced as part of the construction skills package to expand construction skills capacity in the areas across the country, both in CTECs and their partner colleges. More detail on how areas such as Surrey Heath can access this funding will be set out in the new year.