Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessments he has made of the potential merits of spending £50 per pupil per year to help school children catch up with the curriculum following the covid-19 outbreak.

The Department is committed to supporting all children and young people to catch up after the disruption caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. The £1.4 billion package announced in June 2021 to support children aged 2-19 across nurseries, schools and colleges is the next step and builds on the £1.7 billion already committed. This brings the total investment announced for education recovery over the past year to over £3 billion.

The £50 per pupil figure does not account for our previous recovery packages or for our broader response to the COVID-19 outbreak, such as investing over £400 million to provide access to the internet, and over 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.

The next stage of the Government’s long-term education recovery plan will include a review of time spent in school and college and the impact this could have on helping children and young people to catch up. The findings of the review will be set out later in the year to inform the spending review.

In addition, as part of the three-year increase to core funding, schools have received a £2.6 billion increase in funding in the 2020/21 financial year and will receive a further £4.8 billion increase in 2021/22, compared to 2019/20.