Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
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 introducing non-repayable maintenance grants for higher education students from the least advantaged backgrounds.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The government believes that income contingent student loans are a fair and sensible way of financing higher education (HE). It is only right that those who benefit from the system should make a fair contribution to its costs. The government have continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for undergraduate and postgraduate students each year, with a 2.8% increase for the 2023/24 academic year and a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.
In addition, the government have frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven successive years. The department believe that the current fee freeze achieves the best balance between ensuring that the system remains financially sustainable, offering good value for the taxpayer, and reducing debt levels for students in real terms.
The government understands the pressures people have been facing with the cost of living and has taken action to help. The government have already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students including disadvantaged students.
The government have also made a further £10 million of support available to help student mental health and hardship funding for the 2023/24 academic year. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes. For the 2024/25 financial year, the government have increased the Student Premium (full-time, part-time, and disabled premium) by £5 million to reflect high demand for hardship support. Further details of this allocation for the academic year 2024/25 will be announced by the Office for Students in the summer.
Overall, support to households to help with the high cost of living is worth £108 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25, which is an average of £3,800 per UK household. The government believes this will have eased the pressure on family budgets, which will in turn enable many families to provide additional support to their children in HE to help them meet increased living costs.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of (1) primary, and (2) secondary, schools currently provide breakfast clubs.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to continuing support for breakfast clubs in England in schools in disadvantaged areas. Up to £40 million is being invested to continue the department’s national programme until July 2025. This funding will support up to 2,700 schools in disadvantaged areas in England, meaning thousands of children from low income families will be offered free nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing and readiness to learn. Schools are eligible for the programme if they have 40% or more pupils from deprived households, as measured by the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index.
The department does not currently hold recent data on the percentage of schools that provide breakfast clubs. As of November 2022, over 2,100 schools signed up to the programme, of which 65% were primary and 23% secondary.
The recruitment process is still underway for schools that wish to sign up. In March 2023, 2,500 schools had signed up to the programme and the department will work with its supplier, Family Action, to monitor and publish updated data in due course.
The government is very supportive of school breakfasts and the contribution these can make to children’s wellbeing and learning. Alongside our national programme, there are a number of organisations such as Magic Breakfast, Kellogg’s and Greggs providing valuable support to schools with a breakfast provision.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the (a) affordability of childcare and (b) potential impact of conditionality requirements for benefits on people's ability to afford childcare.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Officials across the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions continue to work closely and extensively together to ensure that families in receipt of benefits are not disadvantaged in any way in accessing childcare.
Childcare is a vital enabler for parents to work. By the 2027/28 financial year, this government will expect to be spending more than £8 billion every year on free childcare hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever, and is set to save working families using the full 30 funded hours up to £6,500 per year from when their child is nine months until they are five years old by September 2025. By 2027/28, the Office for Budget Responsibility expects around 60,000 parents to enter employment, and for there to be an equivalent effect on the 1.5 million mothers of young children already in work, increasing their hours by a small amount.
In addition to the expanded entitlements, the government has also taken action to support parents on Universal Credit with childcare costs upfront when they need it, rather than in arrears. The department has increased support for these parents by increasing the childcare cost maximum amounts to £950 for one child and £1,629 for two children. This is an increase from the current rate of up to 70% in the Tax Credit and Universal Credit systems. Families will benefit from the decision to increase the rate of childcare costs support from 70% to 85% and will get more out of the money they earn.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government why thresholds for child benefit entitlement do not take into account overall household income, so that families with one earner are sometimes disadvantaged under the current system.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government at the Spring Budget set out plans to administer the High Income Child Benefit Charge on a household rather than individual basis by April 2026, and will be consulting on these changes in due course
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 24 January 2024 to Question 9921 on Teachers: Training, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of trends in the cost of living on teachers in training.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The government recognises that cost of living pressures impact trainee teachers but has taken steps to increase the financial support available. All trainee teachers on tuition fee-funded initial teacher training (ITT) routes can apply for a tuition fee loan and a partially means-tested loan for living costs. Additional means-tested student finance is also available depending on individual circumstances, such as the Childcare Grant for students with child dependants.
The government has continued to increase maximum loans, grants for living and other costs each year. Maximum support has been increased by 2.8% for the current 2023/24 academic year, with a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25. The highest levels of support are targeted at students from the lowest-income families.
The department has also frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years to deliver better value for students and to keep the cost of higher education under control. By the 2024/25 academic year, maximum fees will have been frozen for 7 years.
The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students, including disadvantaged students.
The department is now making a further £10 million of one-off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.
The department announced an ITT financial incentives package worth up to £196 million for the 2024/25 ITT recruitment cycle, a £15 million increase on the last cycle. This includes bursaries worth up to £28,000 tax-free and scholarships worth up £30,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.
Last year, the department accepted in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and leaders. This included an increase to the unqualified teacher pay range for salaried trainee teachers and a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions of the country, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the maximum value of a student maintenance loan (a) was in 2018 and (b) is as of 4 March 2024; and if she will make an estimate of the real-term change in that value since 2018.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The maximum maintenance loan for an undergraduate student living away from parents outside London in the 2023/24 academic year is £9,978. The equivalent maximum maintenance loan was £8,430 in the 2017/18 academic year. This is a 13.9% reduction in the real-terms value of the maximum loan. This figure has been derived by using the Retail Price Index (RPIX) measure of inflation, applied at Quarter 1 in each academic year throughout this time period, as published by the Office for Budget Responsibility in November 2023, which can be found here: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-november-2023/.
The government has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs each year. Maximum support has been increased by 2.8% for the 2023/24 academic year with a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.
The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and that are impacting students. The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students including disadvantaged students.
The department is now making a further £10 million of one off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.
Over the period between 2022/23 to 2024/25, the government will have provided support worth £104 billion to help families throughout the UK with the cost of living including to meet increased household energy costs. This is an average of £3,700 per household. This will have eased some of the pressure on family budgets and so will in turn enable many families to provide additional support to their children in higher education to help them meet increased living costs.
The department has also frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years to deliver better value for students and to keep the cost of higher education under control. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven years.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support students with the cost of living.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department has frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years to deliver better value for students. By the 2024/25 academic year, maximum fees will have been frozen for 7 years.
The government has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs each year. Maximum support has been increased by 2.8% for the current 2023/24 academic year, with a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.
Students awarded a loan for living costs for the 2023/24 academic year that is lower than the maximum, and whose household income for the tax year 2023/24 has dropped by at least 15% compared to the income provided for their original assessment can apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.
Decisions on student finance have had to be taken to ensure the system remains financially sustainable and the costs of HE are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university.
The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and that are impacting students. The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students including disadvantaged students.
The department is making a further £10 million of one-off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.
Further the department is investing hundreds of millions of pounds in additional funding over the three-year period from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to support high-quality teaching and facilities including in science and engineering, subjects that support the NHS, and degree apprenticeships. This includes the largest increase in government funding for the HE sector to support students and teaching in over a decade.
That is why the department has asked the Office for Students (OfS) to maintain student premium and mental health funding for the 2023/24 financial year at the same levels as the previous year and to ensure providers are aware they can draw on the Student Premium to support students in financial hardship. The department will continue to liaise with the OfS on the impacts of cost-of-living pressures.
Between 2022/23 to 2024/25, government will have provided support worth £104 billion, an average of £3,700 per household, to help families throughout the UK with the cost-of-living including to meet increased household energy costs. This will have eased some of the pressure on family budgets and so will in turn enabled many families to provide additional support to their children in HE to help them meet increased living costs.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils in (a) primary and (b) secondary state schools in the long-term.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Raising attainment for all pupils is at the heart of this government’s agenda. The disadvantage gap at key stage 2 (KS2), as measured by the disadvantage gap index, is stable compared to 2022 having slightly reduced from 3.23 in 2022 to 3.21 in 2023. The key stage 4 (KS4) disadvantage gap index has widened slightly compared to 2021/22, from 3.84 to 3.95.
Across all major departmental programmes and all phases of education, help to narrow these gaps is targeted towards pupils that need it most. The department is investing in 55 Education Investment Areas where outcomes in literacy and numeracy are the poorest, including £86 million in trust capacity funding to help strong trusts expand into areas most in need of improvement.
Regular school attendance is vital for children’s attainment, mental wellbeing and long term development. The department has a comprehensive strategy in place to improve attendance that includes stronger expectations of the system, an improved data tool, and the expansion of the attendance mentor and attendance hubs programmes. This is important as statistics show that pupils with higher attainment at KS2 and KS4 had lower levels of absence over the key stage compared to those with lower attainment.
The schools National Funding Formula (NFF) targets funding to schools that have the greatest numbers of pupils with additional needs. In 2024/25, the department is targeting over £4.4 billion (10.2%) of the NFF according to deprivation, and over £7.8 billion (17.8%) for additional needs overall. In 2024/25, schools with the highest levels of deprivation, on average, attract the largest per pupil funding increases.
As part of the department’s almost £5 billion multi-year recovery programme, the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) also addresses this gap and has delivered nearly five million tutoring courses since it began in November 2020, of which 345,606 courses were started by pupils from September to October 2023. The department listened to feedback from schools and as a result set the subsidy at 50% for 2023/24, which reduces the amount of money schools contribute towards tutoring, which may enable more tutoring to be delivered. Recovery programmes, such as the NTP and the recovery premium, are also focused on helping the most disadvantaged. The department has provided £1 billion to extend the recovery premium over the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years. This builds on £300 million delivered in 2021/22.
Pupil premium also provides extra support for these children. This funding will rise to over £2.9 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, an increase of £80 million from 2023/24. The most disadvantaged three and four year olds are also eligible for early years pupil premium funding, which is being extended to the most disadvantaged two year olds from April 2023 and to under twos from September 2023. Low-income families and children experiencing other forms of disadvantage can qualify for 15 hours free early education for two year olds, a year before all children become eligible for 15 hours at ages three and four.
The quality of teaching a pupil receives is the single most important, in-school factor for improving outcomes. That is why the department’s ambition, as set out in the 2022 Schools White Paper, is to build a system of world-class teacher training and professional development that delivers high-quality professional development at every stage of a teacher’s career. 52,939 early career teachers have now benefitted from provider-led training as part of Early Career Framework reforms which are designed to support teachers in their crucial first years in the profession. 65,416 professionals have benefitted from a fully funded National Professional Qualification (NPQ) based on the best available evidence for effective practice since NPQs were reformed in 2021. This represents a substantial increase in comparison to the 33,399 professionals who undertook a funded NPQ in the four years between 2017 and 2021.
Additionally, the Levelling Up Premium offers higher annual payments of up to £3,000 after tax to mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged secondary schools. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department will be doubling the rate of Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) in (a) providing value for money and (b) reaching the most deprived households.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department’s Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme is targeted at disadvantaged families on the lowest incomes. The department knows that these children are less likely to access organised out-of-school activities, are more likely to experience ‘unhealthy holidays’ in terms of nutrition and physical health, and are more likely to experience social isolation. The programme is targeted primarily towards children who receive benefits-related free school meals (FSM). This can include children from families where parents are working on low incomes and are in receipt of Universal Credit. While the department asks local authorities to focus the majority of the funding on FSM children, they also have flexibility to use up to 15% of their funding to support other children and families that align with the local authorities’ own priorities.
Based on reporting from local authorities, over 680,000 children and young people attended the holiday activities and food programme in the 2023 summer holidays. Of these participating children, over 560,000 were funded directly by the HAF programme and over 460,000 were receiving benefits-related FSM. The reports showed that over 10,000 clubs, events or organised activities operated across the country over the summer.
HAF is a voluntary programme for eligible children, and families can therefore choose whether or not their children attend. The department is pleased that the programme reached so many children last summer.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings of The National Parent Survey, published by Parentkind on 4 December 2023.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The National Parent Survey highlights the importance of engaging parents in their children’s education. While it is for schools to decide how to engage parents based on their particular circumstances, the department has put in place a range of support for schools and families for the issues the survey identifies. This includes support for access and attainment for those from lower income backgrounds and support for mental health and wellbeing.
The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living. The department is providing total support worth £104 billion over the 2022/23 to 2024/25 financial years to help households and individuals with the rising cost of living. This includes additional Cost of Living Payments totalling up to £900 in the 2023/24 financial year for over 8 million UK households on eligible means tested benefits, and an additional £1 billion to help with the cost of household essentials.
Further support is available through the Pupil Premium, to improve the educational outcomes of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. In line with the variety of approaches set by the department, this funding can be used to support high-quality teaching and to provide targeted academic support. It can also be used to tackle wider barriers to academic success, such as difficulties in attendance, behaviour, and social and emotional wellbeing. Pupil Premium funding will rise to over £2.9 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, an increase of £80 million from 2023/24.
The government is addressing specific cost issues such as school uniform. New statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms came into force in September 2022, which requires schools in England to ensure that their uniforms are affordable and secures best value for money for parents.
The department is committed to ensuring schools are calm, safe and supportive learning environments which promote and support good mental health and wellbeing. To support this commitment, the department is offering all state schools funding to train a senior mental health lead, who can oversee an effective whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing, which informs areas such as behaviour, tackling bullying and exam preparation. The department is also continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams, to increase access to early intervention support.
The department shares parents’ concerns about the time spent by children on electronic devices. New non-statutory guidance will aim to ensure that headteachers and members of staff have a clear mandate and practical advice to prohibit the use of mobile phones during the school day, which further supports the department’s aim for schools to be a calm, safe and supportive environment to learn and work.
As highlighted by the report, the experience children gain outside of their lessons is important to them fulfilling their potential as they progress from schools. The department is providing support to increase access to enriching extra-curricular activity. For example, the department is supporting cadets schemes in schools and funding an expansion in access to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in secondary schools, starting in more disadvantaged areas. Disadvantaged areas now rank amongst the highest performing in the country for careers provision and the department’s guidance is clear that schools should recognise the opportunity to improve social mobility by identifying any barriers to participation pupils may have and identify the support needed to maximise their life chances.