Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will provide additional financial assistance to primary and secondary schools to cover increased gas and electric costs once the Ofgem energy cap rises in April 2022.

The Energy Price Cap is set by the independent regulator, Ofgem, and only applies to consumer bills rather than businesses and public services.

There is existing Government funding in place to support public services.

The Government spent around £3.6bn in 2020-21 in early education entitlements and the government continues to support families with their childcare costs. At Spending Review 2021, the Chancellor announced an uplift of £170 million by 2024-25 to increase the hourly rate paid by providers to deliver the government’s free hours offers. This builds on the £44 million increase at SR20.

Eligible nurseries may also qualify for nurseries discount as part of the governments Business Rates Relief, if the business is on Ofsted’s Early Years Register and the premises is wholly or mainly used to provide the Early Years Foundation Stage of education. Further detail on this can be found here: Business rates relief: Nurseries discount - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Overall, core schools funding is increasing by £4 billion in 2022-23 – a 5% increase in real terms per pupil from 2021-22.

The NHS is the Government's key spending priority and that is why it has committed to a historic settlement that provides a cash increase of £33.9 billion a year by 2023-24. This takes the NHS budget from £114.6 billion in 2018-19 to over £160 billion in 2024-25. The Government has made significant additional investments in the health and care system to respond to COVID-19. For 2021-22 the Government has so far approved £34 billion for frontline health services, including £15 billion of day-to-day funding for the NHS.

The Government provided an unprecedented multi-billion-pound package of support for Britain's charities during the pandemic, including £750 million of dedicated funding that has helped more than 15,000 organisations across the country respond to the impact of Covid-19.