Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many overseas investors have been involved in the additional needs sector in each year since 2020.

Based on publicly available information, we understand that, of the fifteen private equity funds who own independent special schools (ISS), five are based outside the UK (Jersey, Guernsey, USA, Qatar and Abu Dhabi), together owning 170 units (19%) with nine thousand pupils (27%). We cannot say how many individual investors these five funds represent, nor can we say how many overseas investors have invested in the remaining ten UK-based private equity funds who own ISS units.