Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an estimate of the potential increase in demand for school places within the maintained sector as a result of parents withdrawing their children from independent schools in response to the covid-19 outbreak.

The Department is not in a position at this stage to estimate whether there will be an increase in demand for school places within the maintained sector as a result of parents withdrawing their children from independent schools in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review, and we will consider the impact of pupils moving between the independent and state sectors once the position is clearer.