Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that vulnerable children and young people who become mental health in-patients can continue their education without their treatment affecting their learning.

The Government’s policy intention is that all children, regardless of circumstance or setting should receive a good education to enable them to shape their own futures. Local authorities have a duty to arrange education for children of compulsory school age who, because of illness including becoming a mental health in-patient, would otherwise not receive this. The education must be full-time, or a close to full-time as the child’s health condition allows.

In relation to young people who are aged 16 and over, as part of their responsibility for making sure that there is sufficient, suitable education and training provision for their young people and to support them to participate, local authorities may fund the provision of education in health care establishments so that a young person can continue their learning.