Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has considered allowing local education authorities to open new maintained schools.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the government is removing the legal presumption that all new schools are opened as academies, allowing local authorities to welcome proposals for all types of school, and to put forward their own proposals where they choose to do so.

These changes will better align local authorities’ responsibility to secure sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools.