Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on what basis the School Teachers' Review Body estimated energy costs as £1,450 million; on what basis the updated estimate of £750 million was arrived at; what assessment she has made of the robustness of these estimates; and if she will make a statement.

The School Teachers’ Review Body did not provide its own assessment of energy costs for schools. It considered the estimate of schools’ energy costs provided by the Department.

The Department’s assessment considered trends in national energy prices and the prices paid by schools, considering how these are likely to vary depending on when schools signed up to their energy contracts.

The Department initially estimated that energy costs in 2023/24 would increase by £1,450 million above the baseline energy costs from 2021/22, when energy costs were close to £700 million for all schools. This would represent a 200% increase. This estimate was underpinned by market data about forecast energy prices at that time, as well as contract types.

The Department continued to monitor forecast prices and updated its assessment in March this year, in light of lower price forecasts published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. The Department continued to make assumptions about schools which would continue to pay above or below this market price, given contract variation. Lower forecasts of prices in 2023/24 led to a reduction in the forecast of the overall increase in energy costs, of an estimated £750 million increase in energy costs above 2021/22 levels, or a 125% increase. The updated forecast does not, therefore, suggest that schools’ energy costs (or the prices that they are paying) will fall in 2023/24, compared to 2022/23. Rather, the increase in energy costs that schools will face in 2023/24, compared to their costs in 2021/22, is now forecast to have moderated.

The Department will continue to refine our assumptions on energy costs for schools for future years.