Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to close the pay gap between staff teaching further education in further education colleges and staff teaching further education in schools.

We greatly value our further education (FE) teachers and all the excellent work they do in supporting learners from a wide range of backgrounds, improving productivity and social mobility.

We know FE faces cost pressures, and that this impacts on teacher pay. We have announced a 16-19 funding increase of £400 million in 2020-21, in addition to funding the extra costs of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme in the same year. This is the largest injection of new money in a decade. This includes £20 million of new funding for the FE workforce.

However, FE and sixth form colleges have a different legal status and relationship to the government when compared with schools. They are private sector institutions, responsible for setting their own pay and conditions. FE colleges are not in scope for school pay arrangements.