To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many students were suspended from schools following racist incidents in (a) Leicester City local education authority and (b) England in each of the last five years. (273582)

The available information on the number of fixed period exclusions (not the number of students) where the reason for exclusion is “racist abuse” is shown in the following tables. This is the only reason for exclusion that relates specifically to racism; however, racist incidents could be included in other categories, such as “physical assault against a pupil”. A pupil can be excluded more than once and these can be for different reasons.

Reasons for exclusions were recorded for the first time in 2003/04, and the most recent year available is 2006/07; information for 2007/08 is scheduled to be published in the summer. Data collected in 2003/04 and 2004/05 via the Termly Exclusions Survey did not include non-maintained special schools; data collected in 2006/07 via the School Census included both maintained and non-maintained special schools. This difference in scope and the change in collection mechanism mean that caution is needed when comparing results from the two sources. In 2005/06, data on fixed period exclusions were collected from secondary schools only.