Written questions by Hayes.

Whether training in the workplace will be a condition of support under the growth and skills levy.

This government’s first mission is to kickstart economic growth. We know that skills gaps are holding back business growth and that we need to support employers to invest in skills training. Our new levy-funded growth and skills offer will introduce greater flexibility to employers and learners in England, creating routes into good, skilled jobs in growing industries, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy.The new training offer will include shorter duration apprenticeships. From August 2025, subject to the legislative timetable, the minimum duration of an apprenticeship will be reduced to eight months. This change means apprentices will be able to achieve occupational competence more quickly, where appropriate.The department will also introduce foundation apprenticeships for young people, a work-based offer providing high-quality progression pathways into further work-based training and employment, including occupationally specific apprenticeships.These are the first steps in expanding the apprenticeships offer into a wider levy-funded growth and skills offer that works better for employers, individuals and the wider economy. The government has established Skills England to form a coherent national picture of skills gaps across all sectors and to help shape the technical education system so that it is responsive to skills needs. This will include advising on priorities for the new growth and skills offer.

What recent steps she has taken to raise awareness of apprenticeships in (a) rural and (b) remote areas.

This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity and to grow the economy.The department continues to raise awareness of the benefits of apprenticeships across the country, including in rural areas. This includes promoting apprenticeships to young people, adults and employers through the Skills for Life campaign. The department also supports the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network, a network of over 2,000 volunteer employers and former and current apprentices, who volunteer their time to inform and inspire the next generation of apprentices and apprentice employers.The department is transforming career opportunities and advice to increase awareness of the range of high-quality options available to young people, including apprenticeships.The department has committed to guarantee two weeks’ worth of work experience for every young person, as well as to establish a national jobs and careers service to support people into successful long-term employment.

What criteria will be used to determine how the new growth and skills levy may be spent; and whether a criteria will be published.

This government’s first mission is to kickstart economic growth. We know that skills gaps are holding back business growth and that we need to support employers to invest in skills training. Our new levy-funded growth and skills offer will introduce greater flexibility to employers and learners in England, creating routes into good, skilled jobs in growing industries, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy.The new training offer will include shorter duration apprenticeships. From August 2025, subject to the legislative timetable, the minimum duration of an apprenticeship will be reduced to eight months. This change means apprentices will be able to achieve occupational competence more quickly, where appropriate.The department will also introduce foundation apprenticeships for young people, a work-based offer providing high-quality progression pathways into further work-based training and employment, including occupationally specific apprenticeships.In response to feedback from employers and learners, the department has already introduced flexibilities for employers to the English and mathematics requirements for adult apprentices.These are the first steps in expanding the apprenticeships offer into a wider levy-funded growth and skills offer that works better for employers, individuals and the wider economy. The government has established Skills England to form a coherent national picture of skills gaps across all sectors and to help shape the technical education system so that it is responsive to skills needs. This will include advising on priorities for the new growth and skills offer.

What her planned timetable is for establishing Skills England on a statutory basis.

Skills England is already operational in shadow form and the government intends for it to be established as an executive agency soon. This model of arm’s length body provides a strong fit for Skills England as it can be operationalised quickly and provides independence, while ensuring sufficient proximity to the department, so that Skills England can inform decisions on skills policy and delivery.

What recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of school uniform costs on families in Lincolnshire.

I refer the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings to the answer of 21 March 2025 to Question 38113.

What information her Department holds on the number of exclusions from schools in South Holland and the Deepings constituency in the (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2023-24 academic years.

Information on suspensions and permanent exclusions is published at local authority level in the ‘Suspension and permanent exclusion in England’ statistics publication. The publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/suspensions-and-permanent-exclusions-in-england/2022-23.The number and rates of suspensions and permanent exclusions in Lincolnshire for the 2022/23 academic year can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/f3101754-5b43-45c4-f1c2-08dd5cc661f7.The number and rates of suspensions and permanent exclusions in Lincolnshire for the autumn term 2023/24 can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/3293a161-d7dd-414d-0e59-08dd5ccbf23a. Data for the full 2023/24 academic year will be published in July 2025.Suspensions and permanent exclusions data is also published at school level. This can be combined with information from ‘Get Information About School’ (GIAS) to identify Parliamentary constituency. GIAS currently reflects the changes made following the general election parliamentary constituency changes. GIAS is available at the following link: https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/.

What proportion of food procured by her Department is sourced in the UK.

To date the government has not held information on where publicly procured food is sourced from.Starting right away, for the first time ever, this government will review the food currently bought in the public sector to determine the standards that it is meeting, where it is bought from, and look to introduce monitoring for transparency and accountability within those supply chains to ultimately get the best food for the consumer.This work will be a significant first step to inform any future changes to public sector catering contracts.

What steps her Department is taking to support children's services in Lincolnshire.

For the 2025/25 financial year, the government is providing Lincolnshire with £7.5 million of funding specifically for children’s services, made up of £4.3 million through the Children and Families Grant, and £3.2 million though the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant. More broadly, the government announced major reforms which will support all local authority children’s services in the department’s policy statement ’Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive‘, published in November. This sets out the government’s approach to creating a children’s social care system that prioritises the needs of children and families, with a focus on prevention, high standards of care, and tackling systemic issues like profiteering in the care market and workforce instability. As part of the delivery of Children’s Social Care reforms the department has been working closely with Lincolnshire as a 'Families First Pathfinder', funding the local authority to test the delivery of new ways of working.

What steps her Department is taking to improve support for care leavers in rural areas.

The department knows that care leavers have some of the worst outcomes in society and we are committed to ensuring that all young people leaving care, irrespective of where they live, have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships, and are engaged in education, employment and training.While many of the issues that care leavers face will be common to all young people leaving care, the department knows that those who live in rural areas can face additional challenges, such as fewer employment opportunities, limited public transport and increased risk of loneliness and isolation, which can make their transition to independence more difficult.All local authorities are required to publish their ‘local offer’ for care leavers, which provides information about the statutory support that all care leavers are entitled to, and any discretionary services the local authority provides, to support care leavers in their transition to adulthood. Each local authority’s local offer should reflect the particular circumstances faced by its care leavers, including those that arise due to the fact that they live in a rural location.The department is strengthening the local offer through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to drive forward our manifesto commitments on children’s social care. The Bill will provide ‘Staying close support’ across the country, including in rural areas, for care leavers up to the age of 25. Staying close will increase support for young people leaving residential care through move-on accommodation and ongoing support from a keyworker.The Bill will also require each local authority to publish the arrangements it has in place to support and assist care leavers, particularly around accommodation and joint working between local authority care leaver and housing teams.Local housing authorities owe various duties to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. In certain circumstances local housing authorities have a duty to secure settled accommodation for them, but this is only the case where, in addition to other criteria, the person is not found to have become homeless intentionally. Through the Bill, we are removing intentional homelessness decisions for eligible care leavers to further strengthen support for this vulnerable cohort.

What estimate she has made of the number of children that have moved from independent to state schools as a result of applying VAT to independent schools in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) the East Midlands.

The department has made no separate estimate of the number of pupils in individual local authority areas who have left the independent school system as a result of VAT on school fees.​The government predicts that, in the long-term steady state, there will be 37,000 fewer pupils in the private sector in the UK as a result of the removal of the VAT exemption applied to school fees. This represents around 6% of the current private school population.Of the expected 37,000 pupil reduction in the private sector, the government estimates an increase of 35,000 pupils in the state sector in the steady state following the VAT policy taking effect, with the other 2,000 consisting of international pupils who do not move into the UK state system and domestic pupils moving into homeschooling. This state sector increase represents less than 0.5% of total UK state school pupils, of which there are over 9 million. This movement is expected to take place over several years.The impact on individual local authorities will interact with other pressures and vary between authorities. Every year, many pupils move between schools, including between the private and state-funded sectors.Local authorities routinely support parents who need a state-funded school place, including where private schools have closed. Where local authorities are experiencing difficulties in ensuring there are enough school places for children that need them, the department will offer support and advice.​The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They can use this funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools.​Local authorities in the East Midlands region have been allocated a total of £177.1 million, including £23.2 million for Lincolnshire, to support the provision of new mainstream school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026.

What steps her Department plans to take to support the provision of sixth form education in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.

All young people should have access to high quality education and training that meets their needs and provides them with opportunities to thrive. Over £7.5 billion of 16-19 programme funding will be invested during the 2024/25 academic year.As announced at the Autumn Budget 2024, the government is providing an additional £300 million for further education in the 2025/26 financial year to ensure young people are developing the skills they need to succeed.Local authorities have statutory duties to support young people into education and training, which includes securing sufficient suitable education and training provision. There are currently four secondary schools offering post-16 sixth form provision in the South Holland and the Deepings constituency. All four sixth-form provisions received sub-judgements of good in their latest published Ofsted inspections.

For what purposes the Education and Skills Funding Agency has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country.The Education and Skills Finding Agency (ESFA) has aligned to the wider departmental approach in this area. Specifically, the department has been using Microsoft Copilot, an AI-based web chat with commercial protection, for various means, including:​Question answering – searching the web to answer a range of questions from factual, creative to analytical.​Information retrieval and summarisation – for example from a policy or data publication.​Learning new skills – for example, improving writing skills or use of analytical skills.​Pattern recognition and data analysis.Natural language understanding and generation, which is ideal for conversation, content creation, and summarisation.​In addition, 150 people across the department are piloting Microsoft 365 Copilot, which leverages AI to automate and accelerate tasks in Microsoft Products. This work included people from the ESFA. The department is tracking the benefits of this pilot, which currently include:​Increased productivity.​Less time in meetings.​Ability to search and analyse data more effectively.​Less repetitive tasks.​Increased efficiency in drafting.​Ability to be more creative.​User satisfaction.​Since summer 2023, the department has created a secure Microsoft Azure Open AI sandbox environment. The ESFA has also utilised this facility. This allows limited groups of users to build and test AI models based on specific uses cases, in a safe and secure environment. Use cases including those from the ESFA are approved by a technology-led steering group, and this group will ultimately decide on which applications could potentially be moved into production for use more broadly across the organisation.The department draws on a range of resources, published on GOV.UK, to inform our AI usage. For example, the Generative AI Framework, the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework, the Data Ethics Framework, the AI Opportunities Action Plan and the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard. ​The department has also had access to the Central Digital and Data Office, based in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, for expert advice.

For what purposes Ofsted has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

This is a matter for His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. I have asked him to write to the right hon. Member for South Holland and the Deepings directly and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

How many schools in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire have been identified as stuck schools.

In the ’School accountability reform – school profiles improvement and intervention’ consultation, the department defined ’stuck school’ as a school that was graded ‘requires improvement’ or equivalent at its most recent Ofsted inspection and was also graded below ‘good’ at its previous inspection.For this purpose, we have considered a sub-judgement of ‘requires improvement’ for leadership and management and/or quality of education for a school inspected in 2024/25 academic year as equivalent to a previous single headline grade of ‘requires improvement’.Based on the latest published Ofsted inspection data, there were 4 stuck schools in the South Holland and the Deepings constituency and 18 stuck schools in Lincolnshire by the end of December 2024.

For what purposes the Standards and Testing Agency has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country.The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) has used AI to create videos to support schools and local authorities with preparing for and administering the national curriculum assessments. It is also trialling the use of large language models to create stakeholder training materials.STA can draw on a range of resources, published on GOV.UK, to inform AI usage. For example, the Generative AI Framework, the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework, the Data Ethics Framework, the AI Opportunities Action Plan and the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard.

For what purposes the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Sir Ian Bauckham, to write to the hon. Member and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

For what purposes the Teaching Regulation Agency has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country.The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) has not used artificial intelligence for any purpose during the last 12 months.The TRA also has access to the Government Digital Service, part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, for expert advice.

How many primary school breakfast clubs she plans to introduce in Lincolnshire.

The government is committed to offering a free breakfast club in every state-funded school with primary-aged pupils in England.

What steps her Department is taking to support children in foster care in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) the East Midlands.

The government is committed to ensuring that every child in care grows up with the love, care and support they need to achieve and thrive.The government is supporting children in care by expanding ‘The Mockingbird Family Model’, which is an innovative, evidence-based approach. Relationships are central to the design of the programme, which involves six to ten satellite families grouped into a constellation around a hub home carer. In East Midlands, this is being delivered as part of the Foster with East Midlands recruitment hub, which launched in March 2024 and comprises of four local authorities, including Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby and Derbyshire.Across England, ten fostering regional hubs, covering 64% of all local authorities, have been set up to reform the way areas recruit and retain foster carers. An additional £15 million was announced to support this programme at the Autumn Budget 2024 and we intend to move towards full national roll out in the next financial year. Lincolnshire is not currently in a hub, but departmental officials have spoken with local authority leaders about their options to become part of an existing or new hub. In the past year, Lincolnshire participated in Fosterlink, a department funded diagnostic and analysis project to support improved recruitment of foster carers.

What steps she is taking to work with local authorities to support kinship carers in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) other rural areas.

The government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. Kinship carers often take on this role at a time when they were least expecting to raise a family and we recognise the challenges they face, including financial.Through the Autumn Budget 2024, the department announced £40 million to trial a new kinship allowance in some local authorities in England. We will test whether paying an allowance to cover the additional costs of caring for a child can help increase the number of children taken in by family members and friends. ​​We will share further details and the process for selecting local authorities in due course.​This is the single biggest investment made by government in kinship care to date. This investment could transform the lives of vulnerable children who can no longer live at home by allowing children to grow up within their families and communities, reducing disruption to their early years, so they can focus on schooling and building friendships.The department understands the unique challenges kinship carers face and is committed to providing the necessary support.