Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the proportion of children that started secondary school who are (a) new to and (b) have early acquisition of English in each of the last 10 years.

The department does not hold data for children who have learnt English throughout their lifetime. Data for the proportion and number of children who are not known to have English as their first language can be found at school level in the school census publication: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics.

A pupil is recorded to have English as an additional language if they are exposed to a language at home that is known or believed to be other than English. This measure is not a measure of English language proficiency or a good proxy for recent immigration.