Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of cuts to teacher training bursaries in 26/27 on teacher recruitment in Lincolnshire.

The government committed, in our Plan for Change, to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools, and in colleges, over the course of this parliament.

We are making progress. The latest workforce data reported over 2,300 more secondary and special school teachers in 2024/25 than in 2023/24, and this year over 32,000 trainees began training, a rise of 11% on the previous year.

Initial teacher training (ITT) bursaries are offered to incentivise more applications to ITT courses. In reviewing these annually, we take account of historic recruitment, forecast economic conditions, and teacher supply need in each subject. We are continuing to offer bursaries worth up to £29,000 tax-free to encourage more talented people to train to teach key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.

In addition, we offer a Targeted Retention Incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools. In Lincolnshire, there are 56 schools where teachers are eligible for these payments.