Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 1.89 of Budget 2016, how much of the £20 million a year of new funding for a Northern Powerhouse school strategy she expects will be directly received by schools in Lancashire.

The allocation of this funding will depend on the identified need and will be reassessed each year, based on the evidence. We intend to build on the Department’s strategy for Achieving Excellence Areas, as identified in our recent White Paper.

Decisions on allocation of funding for the 16-17 financial year will be made by the autumn of this year and will be informed by the emerging findings of the review by Sir Nick Weller.

We will be publishing the terms of reference for Sir Nick Weller’s report in due course.