Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of school buildings in Ashfield constituency.

The department supports academy trusts, local authorities and voluntary-aided bodies, who are responsible for managing the safety and maintenance of their estates, with capital funding, rebuilding programmes and guidance on effective estate management.

We recently confirmed details of £2.1 billion of capital funding for the 2025/26 financial year to improve the condition of schools, up from the £1.8 billion committed for the 2024/25 financial year. Allocations are partly informed by consistent data on the condition of the estate collected by the department reflecting the relative need of schools.

This is in addition to the continuing school rebuilding programme, which includes Ashfield Comprehensive School and Outwood Academy Kirkby in Ashfield constituency.

The department also provides capital funding through the basic need grant to support local authorities meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data.

In March 2025, the department announced that Nottinghamshire County Council has been allocated just over £21.7 million to support it to create the mainstream school places needed by September 2028. This is on top of the just over £55 million we have previously allocated to support Nottinghamshire County Council provide the new school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026.