Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to page 48 of the Social Mobility Commission's report, Time for Change: an assessment of government policies on social mobility 1997-2017, published on 28 June 2017, what assessment she has made of that report's recommendation to introduce effective incentives to attract and retain good quality teachers in the schools that need them most.

We welcome the Social Mobility Commission’s report, published on 28 June, which considers efforts to improve social mobility over the last twenty years. The Commission rightly concludes that too often life chances can be determined not by effort and talent but by background. The Department will set out further details on policy to tackle this in due course.

We are spending £1.3bn up to 2020 to attract new teachers into the profession, but we know that some schools face significant challenges in teacher supply. We have undertaken extensive research and most recently published analysis of sub-national variation in teacher supply and the factors that can be used to explain this. This includes the Supply Index that allows us to identify, for the first time, schools facing significant recruitment and retention challenges. The report is available at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-2.

We will use this evidence to provide targeted support to ensure schools are able to recruit and retain the teachers they need, and provide the best possible educational opportunities to their pupils. We will announce further details in due course.

To improve the quality of teaching and leadership in the schools and areas that need it most, we have also launched the new Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund. This £75 million investment seeks to improve the provision of teachers’ continuing professional development and leadership development.