In November 2021, the Department published statutory guidance to ensure that the cost of school uniform is reasonable and secures best value for money for parents. Schools and their governing boards must have regard to this guidance when developing and implementing their school and trust uniform policies. It is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms.

The guidance states that schools should ensure that second hand uniform is available for parents to acquire, and to make these arrangements clear on their website.

The Department has sought to raise parental awareness of this requirement through the Education Hub, which can be found at: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2022/09/01/back-to-school-week-school-uniform-what-you-need-to-know/.

The subject of domestic science is not a part of the current curriculum. Aspects of the subject have been incorporated into the food technology part of the design and technology curriculum, and the healthy lifestyles topic within the personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum.

Information on the school workforce in England, including the number of subject teachers in state-funded secondary schools, is collected as part of the annual School Workforce Census each November. Information is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

As of November 2021, of the 2,915 state-funded secondary schools that supplied data on the subjects taught by teachers, there were 1,472 schools that reported at least one teacher teaching food technology within the design and technology curriculum at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. This equates to 51% of schools that supplied data.

There were 1,961 schools that reported at least one teacher teaching PSHE at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. This equates to 67% of schools that supplied data.

There were 2,347 schools that reported at least one teacher teaching either food technology as part of the design and technology curriculum and/or PSHE at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. This equates to 81% of schools that supplied data.

Subject teachers are any teacher timetabled to teach the subject for any period in a typical week in November and do not necessarily have a specific post-A level qualification. This timetabling does not cover an entire year of teaching. If there are variations in timetabling across the year, this is not covered in the data available to the Department.

Children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are supported in mainstream schools from the allocations of funding mainstream schools receive for all their pupils. These allocations are calculated under funding formulae that reflect the characteristics of the pupils in the school, including those with SEND.

Core schools' funding is £4 billion higher this year than last year. The additional funding announced in the 2022 Autumn Statement means it will rise by another £3.5 billion, on top of that, next year. Taken together, that means a 15% increase in funding in two years. The department will set out plans for the allocation of the additional £2 billion of funding shortly.

This extra funding, on top of significant increases already announced, demonstrates that schools are a key priority for the government, especially in the context of wider fiscal challenges.

The department is investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to support local authorities to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision (AP). This represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision. This funding will support local authorities to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and will also be used to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings.

As part of this commitment, in March 2022 the department announced High Needs Provision Capital Allocations amounting to over £1.4 billion of new investment, focused on the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. It is ultimately up to local authorities to determine how to best prioritise their funding to address their local priorities.

The £2.6 billion capital investment in high needs provision announced in October 2021 will also help to deliver up to 60 new special and alternative provision free schools. This is in addition to the 48 special free schools already in the pipeline and 90 special free schools already opened.

The department is committed to promoting effective special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support within schools and colleges, and good social care provision for all, including autistic children and young people. The department has issued guidance that encompasses all forms of SEND.

The SEND Code of Practice (2014) places a duty on schools and colleges to use their best endeavours to support all pupils with SEND, including those with autism. Support should be focused on the needs of individual children and young people, which can vary enormously even for those who have the same condition and where they may have more than one condition. This means that the educational interventions that may be effective for one child will not necessarily work for another with the same diagnosis. This need for a flexible and child-centred approach is why, as a department, we do not prescribe specific guidance on supporting particular conditions.

In order to support schools and colleges to put in place good practice for supporting autistic children and young people according to their individual needs, the department have, since 2011, funded the Autism Education Trust to deliver autism training to over 239,000 education staff, to provide resources for practitioners and education settings, and to develop communities of practice to facilitate mutual support and shared learning in good support for autism.

In terms of ensuring good social care practice, all children and young people, including those with autism, should have access to the support they need to keep them safe, ensure their wellbeing and overcome challenges to achieving their potential, as informed by the Children Act (1989), Children and Families Act (2014) and Care Act (2014). Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) sets out how local authorities should provide effective, evidence-based services to protect and promote the welfare of children, including children with autism.

There are several developments currently underway, which will be of benefit to autistic children and young people (and their families). The department is working closely with the Department for Health and Social Care to produce an all ages Autism Strategy which will outline how education, health and social care systems will work to improve support for, and reduce inequalities experienced by autistic people. Alongside the Autism Strategy, a major review of the SEND system, announced in September 2019 and due to report in spring 2020, is aimed at improving support for children with SEND, including those with autism.

We recently announced a £780 million increase to local authorities’ high needs funding, boosting the budget by 12% and bringing the total spent on supporting those with the most complex needs to over £7 billion for 2020-21.

Local authorities have a statutory duty under Section 508B of the Education Act 1996 to make arrangements for free home to school travel for all eligible children. A child is eligible if they are of compulsory school age, attend their nearest suitable school and live beyond the statutory walking distance (2 miles for children under the age of 8 and 3 miles for children aged 8 and over). Children are also eligible if they cannot reasonably be expected to walk because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problems, or because the route is unsafe. There are additional rights to free home to school transport for children who are entitled to free school meals or whose parents are in receipt of the maximum working tax credit.

The Department provides statutory guidance for local authorities on meeting their home to school transport duties and is currently consulting on a revised version of this guidance. The consultation can be found at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/home-to-school-transport-and-admissions-team/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-statutory-guid/.

Local authorities have powers to restrict traffic near schools using Traffic Regulation Orders. The Department for Transport provides guidance to local authorities on traffic signs that can be used to indicate restrictions on traffic in various Chapters of the Traffic Signs Manual. It is for the relevant local authority to decide on what restrictions are needed on their roads, taking into consideration local needs and factors at specific locations.

The Food Standards Agency lead on this matter for government and from 13 December 2014 the allergen rules within the EU Food Information for Consumers Regulation became statutory. From this all food businesses, including school caterers, are required to make available the allergen ingredients information for the food and drink they serve. In these undertakings there should be processes in place to protect vulnerable individuals where the institution has a 'duty of care', for example in schools. In particular, school canteens have to ensure that children with a food hypersensitivity only get food served which is safe for them to eat.

Beyond this headteachers, school governors and their caterers are best placed to make decisions about their school food policies that take into account local circumstances. For instance, some schools are nut or peanut free which means that their caterers do not use nuts or peanuts as ingredients, and that all pupils parents are advised not to include nuts or peanuts in lunch boxes.

I will do everything that I can. I understand that 140 engineering starts have been reported so far in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and our Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge for Schools project, or ASK, is raising pupil awareness through assemblies, application workshops and live broadcasts involving employers such as the national health service and IBM. It is absolutely right that university is one of the options that are available to young people when they leave school.

From January 2018, technical education apprenticeship providers must be allowed into schools to talk to those in years 8 to 13 about technical education and apprenticeships. I urge my hon. Friend, and all other Members when they visit schools, to ask what providers have been into them and to ensure that they hold schools in their constituencies to account, because they have a legal obligation. Schools are also responsible for giving those pupils independent careers advice on a range of education and training opportunities.

The Government's nationally representative survey ‘Supporting mental health in schools and colleges’ showed that 61% of schools and colleges in England already provide counselling services, including 84% of state secondary schools, and 56% of state primary schools. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-mental-health-in-schools-and-colleges.

To support more schools to provide counselling the Government has published a blueprint for school counselling services. This provides practical, evidence-based advice on how to deliver high quality school-based counselling to all pupils. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/counselling-in-schools.

We published our response to the first stage of our consultation on a national funding formula for schools in December 2016. The response to this consultation can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/schools-national-funding-formula.

We are considering the more than 25,000 responses we received to the consultation on the National Funding Formula, and will publish our response in due course.

The Government is committed in addressing unfairness by introducing a national funding formula for schools from April 2018. In our current consultation, we have proposed that over 90% the funding available for schools should be distributed on the basis of pupil numbers and characteristics.

Evidence shows that pupils with particular characteristics, such as coming from a disadvantaged background, are more likely not to reach their full potential and therefore need more support. Where a child is eligible for multiple factors, their school would attract additional funding for each. Funding received on account of these factors would not vary according to school size. The table below shows the proposed factor values for the main formula factors, before the area cost adjustment is applied:

In addition, we propose to include a fixed lump sum factor of £110,000, to contribute to costs that do not vary with pupil numbers. Under our proposals, schools of up to 100 pupils would receive at least an additional £1100 per pupil through the lump sum factor, on top of funding based on pupil numbers and characteristics; schools of 101-500 pupils a further £220-£1100 per pupil; schools of 501-1000 pupils a further £110-£220 per pupil and schools of 1001 or more pupils up to £110 per pupil.

Identifying an appropriate school place for looked after children, including unaccompanied asylum seeking children, rests with the local authority responsible for them. Statutory Guidance for local authorities on ‘promoting the education of looked after children’ is clear that, in arranging a school placement, the child’s social worker and local authority’s Virtual School Head should seek the school or other education setting best suited to the child’s needs.

The School Admissions Code, which sets out the requirements for admitting children to schools, supports this objective by ensuring looked after children have top priority in school admissions.

My hon. Friend is right; we need to move as quickly as possible to ensure that low-funded areas such as his constituency of Tewkesbury are funded fairly and transparently. We have taken the first step by increasing Gloucestershire’s schools budget by £12 million and protecting that amount, and we will now go further by introducing a national funding formula while ensuring that the pace of change provides security for schools and local authorities.

The Government are firmly committed to implementing our manifesto pledge to make school funding fairer. In the spending review last week, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced our intention to introduce a national funding formula for schools, high needs and early years in 2017. This will mean that, for the first time ever, funding is transparently and fairly matched to pupils’ and schools’ needs, and we will set out our detailed plans in the new year.

In order to avoid children of multiple births attending separate schools, the statutory School Admissions Code enables them to be admitted as exceptions to the infant class size limit of 30 pupils per teacher.

Some school admission authorities will exceed their published admission number to avoid separating multiple birth siblings.

We are currently reviewing the Admissions Code, with a view to ensuring siblings can attend the same school. We will consider this issue as part of that review.