Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to reduce regional disparities in modern language A-level (a) provision and (b) entries.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government is committed to ensuring that all pupils, regardless of location, have access to a high quality language education. This includes increasing the number of students studying languages at GCSE and ensuring that those who wish to continue to A level are able to do so.
The department is continuing to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE) to deliver a new model of support for schools. The programme offers free continuous professional development via Language Educators Online (LEO), supported by 14 Strategic Learning Networks and locally responsive National Priority Projects. It is research-informed, helping teachers collaborate and tackle key challenges in language education. Language teachers can join the NCLE Language Network in their area and sign up to LEO to keep up to date with current and evolving teaching practice in language education.
To further support languages education, the government is offering a £20,000 tax-free bursary for trainee language teachers starting courses in 2026, or alternatively, a £22,000 tax-free scholarship for those training to teach French, German, or Spanish.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the number of pupils learning languages in school.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
The study of languages is compulsory under the national curriculum at key stages 2 and 3 for all maintained schools, and will become compulsory in academies, subject to the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
The government continues to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education, which is developing a new model of language support for schools and online continuing professional development for teachers that will support high-quality language teaching. This programme is designed to have national reach, ensuring that all schools can benefit regardless of their location.
To further support languages education, the department is offering a £26,000 tax-free bursary for trainee language teachers starting courses in 2025, or alternatively, a £28,000 tax-free scholarship for those training to teach French, German, or Spanish. Additionally, Oak National Academy is developing modern foreign languages lesson resources for key stages 2 to 4, to be fully released by autumn 2025, helping teachers deliver high-quality lessons and reduce planning time.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of adding Ukrainian language GCSE to the curriculum.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Decisions about which languages to offer at GCSE in England are taken by four independent awarding organisations, AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel and WJEC, rather than by central government. These organisations have the freedom to create a Ukrainian GCSE based on the subject content for modern foreign languages set by the department. We have written to these organisations to ask them to consider introducing a Ukrainian GCSE.
The British government stands steadfast behind the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government. The department is proud to support children and families from Ukraine during their transition to a new life in the UK. To do our part to support the Ukrainian people, we are supporting the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science in policy development and this year have launched a UK-Ukraine Schools Partnership programme, twinning 100 schools in the UK and Ukraine.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much their Department has spent on translating documents into languages other than (a) English and (b) other native UK languages in each year since 2023; and what these languages were.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice has a statutory duty to provide Language Services to enable access to justice for users for whom English is not their first language and those who require visual and tactile services, under the provision of the Equality Act.
Language Service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers while maintaining high standards of service delivery.
In FY 23/24 the total contracted spend was £915,037.52.
In FY 24/25 the total contracted spend was £1,003,283.32.
In FY 25/26 so far, the total contracted spend is £256,707.82.
The languages in this data exclude written translations into English, Welsh and Braille.
The languages translated into from English (United Kingdom) are:
Albanian (Albania)
Amharic (Ethiopia)
Arabic (Classical)
Arabic (Egypt)
Arabic (Modern Standard) Middle Eastern
Arabic (Modern Standard) North African
Arabic (Morocco)
Armenian (Armenia)
Bangla (Bangladesh)
Bosnian (Latin, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Bulgarian (Bulgaria)
Burmese
Burmese (Myanmar)
Catalan (Catalan)
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Croatian (Latin, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Czech (Czech Republic)
Danish (Denmark)
Dari (Afghanistan)
Dutch (Netherlands)
Estonian (Estonia)
Filipino (Philippines)
Finnish (Finland)
French (Belgium)
French (France)
Georgian (Georgia)
German (Austria)
German (Germany)
Greek (Greece)
Gujarati (India)
Hebrew (Israel)
Hindi (India)
Hungarian (Hungary)
Icelandic (Iceland)
Indonesian (Indonesia)
Italian (Italy)
Japanese (Japan)
Kinyarwanda (Rwanda)
Kiswahili (Kenya)
Korean (Korea)
Kurdish (Bahdini)
Kurdish (Sorani)
Latvian (Latvia)
Lingala (Congo DRC)
Lithuanian (Lithuania)
Macedonian (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
Malay (Malaysia)
Malayalam (India)
Maltese (Malta)
Mirpuri (Central Asia)
Mongolian (Cyrillic, Mongolia)
Nepali (Nepal)
Norwegian, Bokmål (Norway)
Norwegian, Nynorsk (Norway)
Oromo (Ethiopia)
PahariPotwari (Central Asia)
Pashto (Afghanistan)
Persian (Afghanistan)
Persian (Iran)
Polish (Poland)
Portuguese (Brazil)
Portuguese (Portugal)
Punjabi (India)
Punjabi (Pakistan)
Romanian (Romania)
Romany (Europe)
Russian (Russia)
Serbian (Cyrillic, Serbia)
Serbian (Latin, Serbia)
Shona (Latin, Zimbabwe)
Sinhala (Sri Lanka)
Slovak (Slovakia)
Slovenian (Slovenia)
Somali (Somalia)
Spanish (Argentina)
Spanish (Latin America)
Spanish (Mexico)
Spanish (Spain)
Swedish (Sweden)
Tajik (Cyrillic, Tajikistan)
Tamazight (Latin, Algeria)
Tamil (India)
Tetum (Timor)
Thai (Thailand)
Tigrinya (Eritrea)
Turkish (Turkey)
Ukranian (Ukraine)
Urdu (Islamic Republic of Pakistan)
Uzbek (Latin, Uzbekistan)
Vietnamese (Vietnam)
Wolof (Senegal)
Yoruba (Nigeria)
The Languages translated into from English (United States) are:
Arabic (Egypt)
Hungarian (Hungary)
Polish (Poland)
Romanian (Romania)
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage more students to study languages in schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The study of languages is compulsory under the national curriculum at key stages 2 and 3 for all maintained schools, and will become compulsory in academies, subject to the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
The most important factor in encouraging students to continue studying languages beyond key stage 3 is the quality of teaching. The government continues to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education, which is developing a new model of language support for schools and online continuing professional development for teachers that will support high quality language teaching. This programme is designed to have national reach, ensuring that all schools can benefit regardless of their location.
To further support languages education, the department is offering a £26,000 tax-free bursary for trainee language teachers starting courses in 2025, or alternatively, a £28,000 tax-free scholarship for those training to teach French, German, or Spanish. Additionally, Oak National Academy is developing modern foreign languages lesson resources for key stages 2 to 4, to be fully released by autumn 2025, helping teachers deliver high quality lessons and reduce planning time.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the number of pupils learning modern foreign languages to GCSE level in Bournemouth.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The department is providing funding to support the uptake of languages across the country. We continue to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education, which delivers online continuing professional development for teachers and a new model of language support for schools. This programme is designed to have national reach, ensuring that all schools can benefit regardless of their location.
To further support languages education, the department is offering a £26,000 tax-free bursary for trainee language teachers starting courses in 2025, or alternatively, a £28,000 tax-free scholarship for those training to teach French, German, or Spanish. Additionally, Oak National Academy is developing modern foreign languages lesson resources for key stages 2 to 4, to be fully released by autumn 2025, helping teachers deliver high-quality lessons and reduce planning time.
Asked by: Lord Tyrie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of education policy on the future take-up of foreign languages at GCSE level.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Education policy has a strong role to play in the future take up of languages at GCSE. That is why the department is continuing to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education to deliver online continuing professional development for teachers and a new model of languages support for schools. The new programme will have national reach as it is not constrained by geography or limited by the number of schools it can support.
The department announced an initial teacher training financial incentives package worth up to £233 million for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle, which is a £37 million increase on the last cycle. This includes tax-free bursaries available to eligible trainee teachers of modern foreign languages of £26,000. We have also increased tax-free scholarships to the value of £28,000 for trainee teachers of French, German and Spanish, and are continuing to offer bursaries and scholarships to all non-UK national trainees in languages.
Oak National Academy has also been funded to provide modern foreign languages lesson resources for schools in England across key stages 2, 3 and 4. These resources will be released in full by autumn 2025, helping the languages teachers who use them to prepare high quality classroom teaching and reduce their workload.
Asked by: Lord Tyrie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of pupils entered for a GCSE in the current year are taking (1) French, (2) Spanish, (3) German and (4) other foreign languages; and what proportion took those exams in 2010, 2015 and 2020.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested information is shown in the following table. Data relating to 2025 will be published in autumn 2025.
Percentage of pupils entering modern language GCSEs at the end of key stage 4
Language | 2019/20 Academic Year | 2014/15 Academic Year | 2009/10 Academic Year |
French | 20 | 25 | 25 |
German | 7 | 9 | 10 |
Spanish | 17 | 14 | 9 |
Arabic | Z | 0 | Z |
Chinese | Z | 1 | Z |
Italian | Z | 1 | 1 |
Polish | Z | 1 | Z |
Urdu | Z | 1 | Z |
Other Modern Language | 4 | 2 | 3 |
To note:
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to introduce a Ukrainian language GCSE.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Decisions about which languages to offer at GCSE in England are taken by four independent awarding organisations – AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel and WJEC – rather than by central government. These organisations have the freedom to create a Ukrainian GCSE based on the subject content for modern foreign language set by the department. We have recently written to these organisations to ask them to consider introducing a Ukrainian GCSE.
The British government stands steadfast behind the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government. The department is proud to support children and families from Ukraine during their transition to a new life in the UK. To do our part to support the Ukrainian people, we are supporting the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science in policy development and this year have launched a UK-Ukraine Schools Partnership Programme, twinning 100 schools in the UK and Ukraine.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will consider teaching Ukrainian to GCSE and A-level standards in some schools and commit to overcoming any obstacles preventing this from happening.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Decisions about which languages to offer at GCSE in England are taken by the four independent awarding organisations, AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel and WJEC, rather than by central government. Awarding organisations are free to produce a GCSE in any modern language, including Ukrainian. This decision would be informed by several factors, including the level of demand from schools and the proportion of the population in the UK speaking the language.
The government stands steadfast behind the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government. The department is proud to support children and families from Ukraine during their transition to a new life and to do our part to support the Ukrainian people. The department launched the UK-Ukraine School Partnerships Programme in January, which supports UK-based Ukrainian students’ cultural ties to Ukraine and builds cross-cultural understanding among our pupils.