Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the annual maintenance and refurbishment budget is for schools in England; and what plans his Department has to increase that funding to enable schools to invest in zero carbon estates.

We have allocated over £7.4 billion in condition funding since 2015 to those responsible for school buildings, to maintain and improve their estate, including £1.4 billion for the financial year 2019-20. We publish these allocations on GOV.UK, and they can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-capital-funding.

In addition, we deliver major building programmes centrally, including the Priority Schools Building Programme, which is rebuilding or refurbishing more than 500 school buildings in the poorest condition.

We support sustainability through our capital funding and programmes, both to reduce carbon and save schools money on energy. Schools can use their condition funding to invest in improving energy efficiency. Furthermore, interest-free loans for energy efficiency projects in schools have been available through the Government backed Salix Schemes. We are also working in partnership with Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, to develop a model of sustainable future schools to deliver an outstanding educational environment using modern methods of construction. More broadly, we are working with colleagues across the Government on carbon reduction and energy efficiency and developing thinking on how future capital programmes can contribute further.

A full, multi-year spending review is expected to be conducted in 2020, including capital budgets beyond 2020-21.