April 2026

8. What steps she is taking to support schools with falling rolls.

I recently met a young constituent who is hoping to start a legal apprenticeship. He told me that he has had to research each apprenticeship opportunity himself and, unlike his peers who are applying to university, he is having to apply in the crucial weeks before his A-levels, when he needs to be revising. The Government rejected the Education Committee’s recommendation that information on apprenticeships should be available via UCAS, so that students have a single source of all post-16 and pos

Parliamentary appearance by Suella Braverman

We were delighted to announce £429 million for new speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and educational psychologists, which will go to communities around the country. We are working closely with colleagues in Health to ensure that there are no cold spots and that every single school and child has access to that essential support.

I would be very happy to meet the hon. Member. The new framework has been designed to support the wellbeing of heads and to give a clear and full view of school performance, but I am happy to continue that conversation.

We agree that special schools play an incredibly important role in the system by providing vital care for children with complex needs and supporting their wider education. They have an important role in the schools White Paper with regard both to education support and to the outreach they do for mainstream schools. We are proposing the introduction of specialist provision packages precisely in order to end the postcode lottery and create more clarity over what specialist provision should look li

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that critical issue. It is an area on which we are already working closely with health colleagues, both in our support for families but also in response to children’s SEND needs. We have a meeting later, where we will discuss the matter.

We are deeply grateful for the service of our armed forces families. I would welcome the opportunity to meet my hon. Friend, and I recently met members of the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces. We will be bringing forward further admissions reforms shortly.

I welcome the hon. Lady’s question. We want to make it much easier for children with special educational needs and disabilities to find support and access opportunities, and are working closely with colleges to do that. As part of our reforms, we will be delivering new national inclusion standards that set out our expectations, and as I have said, we are investing in broadening supported internships.

I am incredibly grateful for the work of my hon. Friend in championing children with special educational needs and disabilities, both before and during her time as a Member of Parliament, and thank her for bringing her expertise to this discussion. I would be delighted to visit and see some of the work of supported internships in practice. As I have set out, we have invested £9 million and are continuing to work with colleges to support inclusion, as well as support into employment.

Last week we announced an expansion of our supported internships offer to unlock opportunities for more young people with special educational needs and disabilities, so that they can benefit from a seamless transition into the world of work. I have spoken to young people and teachers and heard how transformative supported internships can be for confidence and in supporting children to take those steps into work, and we are determined to get behind the talent of children with SEND.

The Government absolutely want to see children engaged in physical activity, and to support that through the school day. We have recently announced funding for school games organisers and will be setting out further information about our new partnership model, which will bring together different partners from across the private, public and voluntary sectors to ensure that children in every community have opportunities.

I would like to start by acknowledging the proactive response of the brilliant team at Budmouth academy in response to a recent meningitis case, and I am really pleased to hear how welcome the investment in the school rebuilding programme is at that academy. On top of that investment, the Aspirations Academies Trust has been provisionally allocated investment of over £1.9 million to improve its estates. I would welcome the opportunity to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this matter further.

The Government are opening up access to music, art, drama and—crucially—sport. We want schools to have access to high-quality sports facilities so that children can achieve and thrive. The Department is improving school facilities through guidance and rebuilding programmes, with £2.1 billion of capital funding.

My question to the Prime Minister is straightforward: did Morgan McSweeney or any of the Prime Minister’s advisers—past or present—know about this issue before last Thursday?

At an awards ceremony in Scotland last month, apprentices said time and again how they were told throughout their school careers that their grades were good enough to go to university, and that they should think again about going into an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships create not just jobs but careers, so what can the Department do to help in Scotland where the Scottish Government have wrecked so much of Scottish education? Can they be prevented from destroying apprenticeships as well?

The number of foreign students claiming fraudulent student loans is at a record high. That is making a mockery of the student finance system and costing the British taxpayer millions of pounds which could otherwise be diverted to support British students. What are the Government doing to reduce this fraudulent practice and fix our broken student loans system?

I really welcome the hon. Lady’s question. I absolutely agree that we need to spot the early warning signs of financial failure. That is why we are bringing in a new Ofsted inspection framework for multi-academy trusts that will look at other issues, including governance and financial management.

This Government believe that a collaborative school system is the best way to drive high and rising standards, so that every child can achieve and thrive. In our schools White Paper, we have set out how we plan to support further collaboration while improving accountability to deliver the education our children deserve.

I hope we are on the home straight with this enormous piece of legislation. I start by welcoming the fact that the House of Lords has heeded many of the arguments and votes in this House last week—of the 19 issues that I went through in my speech last Tuesday, we are now down to just four. As for those four, we have again listened carefully to the points raised in the Lords and tabled further amendments in lieu. Let me turn first to amendments 2D and 2E on fining for profit, tabled by Liberal De