Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when nationality and country of birth data collected by schools for immigration purposes in the 2016-18 school census will be deleted as required by the Education Act 1996.

The Department has consistently been clear that nationality and country of birth data was collected for the purposes of internal educational research and will not be shared with the Home Office or any other government department. At the end of the current 2017/18 academic year, the Department will have sufficient data to support the research it wishes to undertake and has proactively decided to remove the data collection burden placed on schools and parents from September 2018 onwards.

The Department has robust safeguards and controls in place to ensure this data, as with all our data, is handled securely and in accordance with relevant data protection regulations. This data will be subject to ongoing periodic reviews to ensure that the data will be retained for no longer than is necessary for the research purposes for which the data was originally collected.