Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of guaranteeing funding for BTEC qualifications for the current parliamentary session.

The year delay to the qualifications review which was announced by my right Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education in November 2021 means that no qualifications, including BTECs, will have their funding approval removed because they overlap with T Levels before 1 August 2024.

We will continue to fund applied general style qualifications including BTECs as part of mixed programmes where there is a clear need for them, and they meet new quality and other criteria. Students will also be able to study qualifications such as BTECs as their full programme of study where there is no A level or T Level. These qualifications will continue to play an important role for 16 to 19 year olds and adults as they do now.