Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-11-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of additional schools that will be needed to accommodate the predicted population rise over the next 25 years; and if she will make a statement.
Edward Timpson
Pupil forecasts based on ONS population projections have been made out to 2024 and they suggest that pupil numbers are due to rise significantly over that period. Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that there are sufficient schools to meet that need, and for determining precisely how many new schools are needed in their area.
We allocate funding for new school places to local authorities three years in advance in order to balance the need for robust forecasts and to ensure certainty for local authorities over their future funding allocations.
Providing this funding to support local authorities in creating additional school places is one of the Government’s top priorities. This is signalled by the £7 billion that this Government has committed to spend on new places over the course of this Parliament; as well as the £5 billion that the previous Coalition Government invested in school places between 2011 and 2015 (more than double the £1.9 billion spent between 2007 and 2011).