Ambient and indoor air pollution are harmful to health in the United Kingdom. Long-term exposure to air pollution, over years or lifetimes, reduces life expectancy, mainly due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, dementia and lung cancer. Short-term exposure, over hours or days, to elevated levels of air pollution can also cause a range of health impacts, including effects on lung function, exacerbation of asthma, increases in respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions, and mortality. Some groups may be more affected by air pollution exposure due to their location or socioeconomic background, but the types of health impacts from exposure to poor air quality in indoor and ambient settings remains similar. A combination of high ambient air pollution levels and substandard housing in income-deprived areas, pre-existing health issues, and lifestyle factors contribute to a disproportionate burden of air-pollution-related ill health among more deprived groups.

The Curriculum and Assessment Review found that English Baccalaureate (EBacc) measures have unnecessarily constrained subject choice, affecting student engagement and achievement, and that uptake of EBacc subjects has not translated into increased study of them at 16 to 19. Although the EBacc was intended to support GCSE entries of modern foreign languages, history and geography, full EBacc entry was just 41% in 2024/25.

The new model protects the important place of humanities and modern foreign languages. Under our proposed model, students will have to take at least one humanity or language whilst currently schools can satisfy expectations of Progress 8 without pupils taking any of these subjects.

The department will consult on the improved Progress 8 and Attainment 8 measures.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The National Curriculum is a framework setting out the content of what the Department expects schools to cover in each subject. The National Curriculum does not set out how curriculum subjects, or topics within the subjects, should be taught. There is plenty of scope to teach about the creation of the United Kingdom, the Union and the UK flag within the themes and eras of the history curriculum.

The forming of the United Kingdom can be taught as part of the Key Stage 3 theme, ‘the development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745’ where one of the non-statutory examples is ‘the Act of Union of 1707’.

The later creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as its flag, as a result of the Acts of Union in 1800 could be taught as part of the theme, ‘ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745-1901’.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

All schools in England must offer a curriculum that is balanced and broad, which prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.

The National Curriculum is a framework setting out the content of what the Department expects schools to cover in each subject. The National Curriculum does not set out how curriculum subjects, or topics within the subjects, should be taught. There is plenty of scope to teach pupils about the culture, politics and geography of each of the UK nations within the National Curriculum across a range of subjects, including citizenship, geography and where else teachers and schools feel it is appropriate.

Within citizenship, pupils in secondary maintained schools in England will learn about the diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding. Pupils should also be taught about parliamentary democracy and the key elements of the constitution of the United Kingdom.

Within geography, pupils should be taught to name and locate counties and cities of the United Kingdom, geographical regions and their identifying human and physical characteristics, key topographical features and land-use patterns, and understand how some of these aspects have changed over time.

The Department has published Political Impartiality in Schools guidance to support teachers in tackling sensitive issues in the classroom in a politically impartial way. This guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools.

The bursaries we offer are designed to incentivise more applications to initial teacher training (ITT) courses. As such, they are provided for the phases and subjects which have previously struggled to attract sufficient applicants. Being able to change bursary amounts gives us the flexibility to respond to the need to attract new teachers, and means we are spending money where it is needed most.

In the academic year 2020/21, we exceeded the geography postgraduate ITT target (achieving 129% of the target). The bursaries we offered for academic year 2021/22 took account of this and the continuing boost to ITT recruitment caused by the economic impact of COVID-19.

We announced the bursaries available for academic year 2021/22 on 12 October 2020, the same day that applications opened for ITT courses starting in 2021/22. This information was published on GOV.UK and promoted to applicants through our Get Into Teaching service, to ensure applicants were made aware of the financial offer before applying. As bursaries are designed to incentivise applications it would not be appropriate, or a judicious use of public money, to retrospectively award them to trainees who were not eligible when they applied.

The 1:200 population ratio is a longstanding operating principle that is generally applicable to Local Authority area.

We have more teachers in our schools than ever before and the number of teachers has kept pace with changing numbers of pupils. There are more than 456,000 teachers in schools throughout England – up more than 15,000 since 2010. Teaching continues to be a popular profession with more than 14,000 former teachers coming back to the classroom in the last year.

We recognise that as schools increase their entry rates to English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects there will be more demand for specialist teachers, particularly language teachers. That is why we are spending over £1.3 billion up to 2020 to attract new teachers into the profession including continuing to offer teacher training bursaries in history, geography and languages to make sure that we continue to attract the brightest graduates. We have recently announced the expansion of the teacher subject specialism training to include modern foreign languages.

This investment in training the next generation of teachers clearly demonstrates the political will we have to make sure that all schools are able to recruit the teachers they need.

For the 2014/15 and 2015/16 academic years, we operated an allocations system to distribute initial teacher training (ITT) places directly to School Direct lead schools, school-centred initial teacher training providers (SCITTs) and higher education institutions (HEIs). For recent years detailed initial and final allocations data for individual HEIs can be found on GOV.UK:

• 2015/16 GOV.UK links:

  • Initial allocations: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-allocations-for-academic-year-2015-to-2016

  • Final allocations summary: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-recruitment-controls

  • Summary of final core postgraduate ITT places available to all HEIs in:

    • (a) history = 243;

    • (b) geography = 462;

    • (c) English = 866; and

    • (d) STEM* = 5081)

• 2014/15 GOV.UK links:

  • https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-allocations-for-academic-year-2014-to-2015

  • Summary of final core postgraduate places available to all HEIs in:

    • (a) history = 363;

    • (b) geography = 472;

    • (c) English = 867 and

    • (d) STEM* = 5086)

*STEM subjects include: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Design & Technology and Computing.

This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw. A copy of his reply will be placed in the library of the House.

Fieldwork is an essential component of geography. The new reformed GCSE in geography will require pupils to undertake at least two fieldwork activities in contrasting environments. We recently consulted on new content for geography A level, based on recommendations from the A level Content Advisory Board. The proposed content requires A level students to undertake one independent student investigation involving fieldwork. AS students are also required to undertake fieldwork.

The new content for combined science and biology GCSEs sets clear expectations that students should undertake fieldwork. The content for A level biology sets out the practical skills and techniques needed for biology, including a specific reference to using sampling techniques in fieldwork.

Assessment arrangements are a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation and I have asked its Chief Regulator, Glenys Stacey, to write directly to Baroness Miller. A copy of her reply will be placed in the House Library.