Written questions by Duncan-Jordan.

Whether she plans to increase funding for (a) free school meals and (b) universal infant free school meals to help source school meals from British produce.

The department spends approximately £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for 2.1 million school age pupils under benefits-based free school meals, over 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education, and around 1.3 million infant pupils under the Universal Infant Free School Meal scheme to ensure they receive a nutritious lunchtime meal.Funding is not ring-fenced, meaning that schools have autonomy over delivery, including entering into catering contracts with suppliers and allocation of funding within their budgets.The department regularly speaks to food industry representatives on a range of issues including sector challenges such as funding.As with all government programmes, the department will keep our approach to free school meals, including funding, under continued review.

If she will ringfence school meal funding.

The department spends approximately £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for 2.1 million school age pupils under benefits-based free school meals, over 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education, and around 1.3 million infant pupils under the Universal Infant Free School Meal scheme to ensure they receive a nutritious lunchtime meal.Funding is not ring-fenced, meaning that schools have autonomy over delivery, including entering into catering contracts with suppliers and allocation of funding within their budgets.The department regularly speaks to food industry representatives on a range of issues including sector challenges such as funding.As with all government programmes, the department will keep our approach to free school meals, including funding, under continued review.

Whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the potential impact of the 50% Buying British ambition on school caterers.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have met to discuss a range of issues and projects.The government is committed to increasing the procurement of food that meets higher environmental standards, supporting local suppliers, and upholding ethical sourcing practices across public sector contracts. The department is considering the policy options available to deliver these aims. Any future policies will be informed by the review of the provenance of food sourced by the public sector, announced recently. Schools and caterers can additionally voluntarily follow the government buying standards.

What steps her Department is taking to implement (a) a workforce development strategy, (b) apprenticeships and (c) career pathways for the independent advice sector.

An appropriately trained workforce of careers advisers, available to work with young people and adults in a range of settings, is a key part of our approach to careers provision. The department wants to ensure that people from all backgrounds can access the expert advice they need to explore a range of career pathways and labour market opportunities. This supports the development of a skilled workforce across all sectors, driving economic growth through our Industrial Strategy.The department works closely with the Career Development Institute (CDI), the UK’s professional body for careers work, which provides training and professional development. The current offer includes a bespoke department-funded programme for National Careers Service advisers and a programme, funded by the Gatsby Foundation, targeted on raising awareness of technical education pathways amongst careers advisers working in schools and colleges.The CDI maintains the UK Register of Career Development Professionals with members adhering to a code of ethics and committing to regular professional development. The CDI also provides advice on the right qualifications for various roles and how to conduct effective personal guidance meetings.Secondary schools and colleges are legally required to secure independent and impartial careers guidance for all learners up to the age of 18 and for 19 to 24-year olds with an education, health and care plan. Careers statutory guidance sets a clear expectation that schools and colleges should make sure that careers advisers providing personal guidance to learners are trained to the appropriate level. The department recommends that schools and colleges use the CDI’s register to find suitable careers advisers qualified to at least level 6 in a career development subject. The main level 6 and 7 qualifications for careers advisers are the level 6 Diploma in Career Guidance and Development, the level 6 Higher Apprenticeship: Career Development Professional and the Qualification in Career Development at level 7.Over 760 careers advisers form the bedrock of our National Careers Service, providing free, up to date, impartial information, advice and guidance on careers and the labour market in England. National Careers Service prime contractors must make sure that all advisers hold career development qualifications appropriate to their role and demonstrate in their workforce development strategy that they are committed to employing staff in line with the standards set by the CDI. The government is committed to bringing the National Careers Service and Jobcentre Plus closer together and we will set out further details on this soon.

What assessment she has made of the Office for Students registered theological colleges’ compliance with academic freedom and freedom of speech obligations.

I refer the hon. Member for Poole to the answer of 9 April 2025 to Question HL6374.

What recent estimate she has made of the number of children who are not receiving their free milk entitlement; and if she will take steps to monitor compliance with school food standards.

Under the School Food Standards, schools must ensure milk is available to all pupils who want it during school hours, which includes any time during a school session or a break between sessions. Section 512ZB (3) of the Education Act 1996 sets out the requirement that milk must be provided free of charge to pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM). The department does not hold data on the number of children who are not receiving their free milk entitlement through FSM.Compliance with the School Food Standards is mandatory for maintained schools, academies and free schools.  Governors have a responsibility to ensure compliance and should appropriately challenge the headteacher and the senior leadership team to ensure the school is meeting its obligations. The department is keeping our approach to school food compliance under review.

What steps her Department is taking to ensure schools fulfil their legal obligations under school food standards to provide free milk for students with their free school (a) breakfast and (b) meal.

Under the School Food Standards, schools must ensure milk is available to all pupils who want it during school hours, which includes any time during a school session or a break between sessions. Section 512ZB (3) of the Education Act 1996 sets out the requirement that milk must be provided free of charge to pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM). The department does not hold data on the number of children who are not receiving their free milk entitlement through FSM.Compliance with the School Food Standards is mandatory for maintained schools, academies and free schools.  Governors have a responsibility to ensure compliance and should appropriately challenge the headteacher and the senior leadership team to ensure the school is meeting its obligations. The department is keeping our approach to school food compliance under review.

What steps she is taking to help improve the terms and conditions of teachers in the public sector.

There is a statutory process for making revisions to the pay and conditions of teachers, and any change must first be referred by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).The department’s written evidence for the 2025/2026 pay round asks the STRB to consider how schools can support teachers from all backgrounds and promote flexible working, which will improve the experience of teaching and help deliver the best possible education for students.The department is also asking the STRB to consider how additional responsibility payments can be more fairly managed for part-time teachers.The department will also use the new powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to make changes to the teacher pay and conditions framework to create a pay floor with no ceiling, to enable healthy competition and innovation beyond a core framework, which will help to improve all state schools.

What steps her Department is taking to help improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of school teachers.

High quality teaching is the most important in-school factor to a child’s educational outcomes. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity, boost the life chances for every child, reset the relationship with the sector and restore the status of the teaching profession. This is why the department will recruit 6,500 new expert teachers, get more teachers into shortage subjects, support areas that face recruitment challenges and tackle retention issues.The department is making good progress through delivery of key initiatives to recruit and retain more high quality teachers. We announced an initial teacher training financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle worth £233 million, a £37 million increase on the last cycle. This includes a range of measures, including bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.Fair pay is key to ensuring teaching is an attractive and respected profession, which is why this government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September.For the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic year, the department is also offering a Targeted Retention Incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects, in the schools and areas that need them most.To further support retention, the department has made available a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and support schools to introduce flexible working practices. The department’s Improve Workload and Wellbeing for School Staff service , developed alongside school leaders, includes a workload reduction toolkit to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload, as well as the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which sets out commitments from the government, Ofsted, schools, and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff. The department’s improve workload and wellbeing for school staff service can be found here: https://improve-workload-and-wellbeing-for-school-staff.education.gov.uk/.The department will continue to work alongside the sector to further develop our delivery plan and seek to re-establish teaching as an attractive profession and will share further details in due course.

What steps she plans to take to ensure that childcare is affordable for working parents.

As part of our Plan for Change, this government is committed to giving every child the best start in life. The department has set a milestone of a record proportion – 75% – of children to be starting school ready to learn. We will measure our progress through the percentage of children reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment by 2028.To help deliver this ambition, from the start of September 2024, eligible working parents have been entitled to 15 hours a week of early education and care from the term after their child turns nine months old. The department is expanding the childcare entitlements so that, from September 2025, eligible working parents can access 30 hours of early education and childcare a week.Parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit childcare.Next year alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which represents a more than 30% increase compared to the 2024/25 financial year.The early years pupil premium rate has increased by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. We are also providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant and £25 million through the forthcoming National Insurance contributions grant for public sector employers in early years.The government is also rolling out plans for the first phase of school based nurseries, ensuring families across the country have access to high quality childcare and early education. The first wave of up to 300 schools to be allocated nursery funding will be announced in spring.As we grow the childcare system, it must remain fair and accessible to all parents. The department has taken action to protect parents from reported instances of very high additional charges or ‘top-up fees’ on top of their entitlement, ensuring the funded hours remain accessible and affordable for families.The department is determined to create change in the approach to early years, focusing on high quality early education, celebrating and supporting early years careers, and embedding the sector into the wider education system. We are delivering programmes to support the sector to attract talented staff and childminders by creating conditions for improved recruitment, alongside programmes to better utilise the skills of the existing workforce.

What steps she plans to take to ensure that all families have access to (a) affordable and (b) quality childcare.

As part of our Plan for Change, this government is committed to giving every child the best start in life. The department has set a milestone of a record proportion – 75% – of children to be starting school ready to learn. We will measure our progress through the percentage of children reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment by 2028.To help deliver this ambition, from the start of September 2024, eligible working parents have been entitled to 15 hours a week of early education and care from the term after their child turns nine months old. The department is expanding the childcare entitlements so that, from September 2025, eligible working parents can access 30 hours of early education and childcare a week.Parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit childcare.Next year alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which represents a more than 30% increase compared to the 2024/25 financial year.The early years pupil premium rate has increased by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. We are also providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant and £25 million through the forthcoming National Insurance contributions grant for public sector employers in early years.The government is also rolling out plans for the first phase of school based nurseries, ensuring families across the country have access to high quality childcare and early education. The first wave of up to 300 schools to be allocated nursery funding will be announced in spring.As we grow the childcare system, it must remain fair and accessible to all parents. The department has taken action to protect parents from reported instances of very high additional charges or ‘top-up fees’ on top of their entitlement, ensuring the funded hours remain accessible and affordable for families.The department is determined to create change in the approach to early years, focusing on high quality early education, celebrating and supporting early years careers, and embedding the sector into the wider education system. We are delivering programmes to support the sector to attract talented staff and childminders by creating conditions for improved recruitment, alongside programmes to better utilise the skills of the existing workforce.

What steps she plans to take to increase funding for the early years childcare sector.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has been clear in her commitment to early years. Despite tough decisions to get our public finances back on track, this government has increased investment in the early years sector to drive forward progress towards our plan for change target of a record number of children starting school ready to learn.In the 2025/26 financial year alone, this government plans to spend over £8 billion on early years entitlements. We have also announced the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, increasing the rate by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, raising it to the equivalent of up to £570 per eligible child per year.On top of this we are providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant to support the sector to provide the additional places and workforce needed by September 2025.We are also providing £25 million through the forthcoming Employer National Insurance Contributions Grant for public sector employers in the early years.Future spending decisions beyond the 2025/26 financial year will be announced at the next spending review.

If she will consider a three year funding settlement for the Music Hub programme.

Multi-year programme budgets will be considered as part of the spending review and subsequent business planning process.

What steps her department is taking to promote apprenticeships in the hair and beauty industry.

Apprenticeships are a great way for individuals to begin, or progress in, a successful career in the hair and beauty industry. Employers in the hair and beauty sector have developed several high quality apprenticeships, including the level 2 hairdressing professional standard, to help them develop their workforce.The department continues to promote the benefits that apprenticeships offer to students in schools and colleges through the Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge programme and through the Skills for Life campaign.To support smaller employers to access apprenticeships, the government pays the full training costs for young apprentices aged 16 to 21, and for apprentices aged 22 to 24 who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan or have been in local authority care.Employers can also benefit from £1,000 payments when they take on apprentices aged 16 to 18, or apprentices aged 19 to 24 who have an EHC plan or have been in local authority care. Employers can choose how they spend these payments.

How many children were refused an education, health and care plan assessment by their local authority in the last financial year.

The department collects information on the number of requests for an education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment, the number of EHC needs assessments, and the outcome of these requests and assessments.This information can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/3216aeea-b67c-4fc7-e256-08dd5a6d191a. These figures and are the most up to date we hold and refer to the 2023 calendar year. We do not hold information on a financial year basis.Information on EHC plans maintained by local authorities, including requests for needs assessments, decisions made to assess and the number of plans issued is included in the statistical release, ‘Education, health and care plans’. The full publication can be read here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans.

What assessment he has made of the potential merits of ensuring that parents have a legal right to appeal decisions by their local authority to refuse to assess their child for an EHCP.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed and thrive in their education and as they move into adult life.Parents have a legal right of appeal if a local authority decides not to assess their child for an education, health and care (EHC) plan. The first-tier SEND Tribunal hears appeals against local authority decisions in relation to EHC assessments and plans for children and young people. Parents and carers can appeal to the Tribunal about local authority refusal to assess a child or young person’s EHC needs, reassess their EHC needs, issue an EHC plan, update what is in an EHC plan, or maintain an EHC plan.Most EHC plans and assessments are concluded without a Tribunal hearing. Nationally, in the 2023 calendar year, there were 15,600 appeals to the Tribunal, equating to 2.5% of all appealable decisions subsequently resulting in Tribunal appeals.The department is exploring what more we can do to work with local authorities, particularly those with high appeal rates, to understand the reasons for and to address these issues. As an initial step, we jointly delivered with the Independent Provider of Special Educational Advice and the Council for Disabled Children, eight training sessions on 'SEND and the law' for local authority SEND caseworkers.

Whether he has made an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of recently announced increases in Social Work England registration fees.

As set out in the Children and Social Work Act 2017, Social Work England (SWE) is responsible for setting the level of registration fees. The relevant sections of the Act can be found here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/16/part/2/enacted#section-36-4. Before determining the level of any fee, including any change, SWE must both consult publicly and gain approval of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education.SWE launched a public consultation on changes to their fees on 19 February 2025. The consultation runs until 13 May 2025. More information on the proposed fee changes and public consultation can be found here: https://www.socialworkengland.org.uk/news/public-consultation-on-changes-to-our-fees-is-now-open/.

What assessment she has made of the potential merits of continued funding of the Music Hub programme.

Music Hubs play a crucial role in providing music education both within the school curriculum and beyond. The government currently allocates £79 million annually to support the Music Hub programme, including funding for the 2024/25 academic year. The department has not yet confirmed the future funding levels for Music Hubs.

What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the guidance entitled Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 in preventing children from being returned to abusive parents.

Local authorities have a duty to protect all children, including those returning home from care.The statutory 'Children Act 1989 guidance and regulations volume 2: care planning, placement and case review' is clear that where the plan is for a child to return to the care of their family when they cease to be looked-after, there should be a robust planning and decision-making process to ensure that this decision is in the best interests of the child and will safeguard and promote their welfare.The multi-agency statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children 2023’ reinforces the legal obligations for individuals and organisations to ensure the safety of children, including those returning home.Local statutory safeguarding partners, such as local authorities, integrated care boards and police chiefs have responsibility for the delivery and monitoring of multi-agency priorities and procedures to protect and safeguard children in the local area, and are required to publish an annual report on the effectiveness of their arrangements.Internal analysis of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements’ annual reports and on the impact of how the ‘Working together to safeguard children 2023' statutory guidance was strengthened in 2023 is encouraging, especially regarding how safeguarding partners are implementing its requirements.Ofsted also has a vital role to play in ensuring that the settings and services that support children are safe and effective, and that children leaving care are given the right support to achieve and thrive, with 100 local authorities now rated Good or Outstanding for children’s services.Protecting children at risk of abuse and stopping vulnerable children falling through cracks in services are at the heart of the government’s landmark Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, introduced on 17 December 2024.The department’s investment in reforms includes over £500 million for Family Help and child protection services. We expect Family Help to provide support where children in care may be able to return safely to their families.

If she will announce a future funding settlement for the Adoption Support Fund beyond this year.

I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Poole to the answer of 29 January 2025 to Question 26025.