Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding he plans to release to schools for improving ventilation to reduce covid-19 infection rates in the next 12 months.

We have provided CO2 monitors to state-funded education providers, including early years, schools and further education providers, backed by £25 million in government funding. As of 11 February 2022, we have delivered 361,999 CO2 monitors to over 99% of eligible education providers, exceeding our public commitment. Final deliveries to a small number of providers will be completed by mid-March.

Feedback suggests that schools are finding the monitors helpful to manage ventilation and, in the majority of education providers, existing ventilation measures are sufficient. Where any issues are identified, in most cases, we expect this to be resolved by opening windows and doors, or, in some cases, minor estate repairs may be needed. Day to day maintenance and minor repairs, including those to improve ventilation, should typically be funded from school revenue budgets. Schools also receive an annual devolved formula capital allocation to spend on small capital projects or capital purchases. For more substantial capital works, schools and those responsible for school buildings have access to funding to improve the condition of buildings through different routes depending on their size and type.

For the very few cases where maintaining good ventilation is not possible, we are supplying up to a total of 9,000 air cleaning units in response to this feedback to education providers. As of 24 January 2022, 1,265 providers were eligible to receive air cleaning units. These were allocated to providers based on need, using the eligibility criteria we have set out in our guidance. The majority of eligible education providers have now received their deliveries of air cleaning units.

The case for additional support for education providers will be kept under review as part of our overall response to the COVID-19 outbreak and we will continue to work with the sector to understand ventilation needs across the education estate.