Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding her Department plans to provide to the Department of Education in Northern Ireland through the Asylum Dispersal Grant in the next 12 months; when schools in Northern Ireland were invited to bid for that funding; and what the deadlines for those bids is.

The Home Office has been working with The Executive Office (TEO) on an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding funding. The MoU is similar to the asylum dispersal grant funding provided to regions in England, Scotland and Wales, in which the Home Office has funded Northern Ireland over £4million as of December 2022. This funding is unconditional and will be allocated by the TEO.