Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve the quality of education in pupil referral units.

The Government is taking forward a programme of reform to alternative provision (AP), including pupil referral units, and set out its vision for reform in the March 2018 document: 'Creating opportunity for all: our vision for alternative provision'. Since then the Government has made significant progress by launching a £4 million AP Innovation Fund, which is developing best practice and delivering projects to improve outcomes for pupils in AP, by publishing two research reports into AP with examples of good practice for providers and commissioners, and by opening 6 AP free schools and approving two more.

In response to the Timpson Review of school exclusion, the Government committed to setting out plans to go further to improve outcomes for children in AP, including how to support alternative providers to attract and develop high-quality staff through a new AP workforce programme, and how it will help commissioners and providers to identify and recognise good practice.