Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to (a) provide for and (b) promote the study of (i) agriculture and (ii) related land-based subjects as academic subjects in non-rural areas.

Subject to meeting legal requirements, it is for individual schools and colleges to decide which subjects to include in their curriculum.

A number of GCSEs contain content relevant to agriculture. In GCSE geography, pupils are taught about resources and resource management, including the modification and change of ecosystems in order to obtain food, energy and water. In the food preparation and nutrition GCSE, the economic, environmental, and ethical influences on food availability and production processes are covered.

There are a number of vocational qualifications that count in 16-18 performance tables, covering agriculture and other land-based subjects. Apprenticeship standards already exist in land-based service engineering, and there are a number of further standards in development, including crop technician, farrier, poultry technician and stockperson. The Department is also reforming technical education. This includes the introduction of T levels in an agriculture, environment and animal care route.