Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that schools in the Birmingham city local authority area are adequately funded to enable a return to operations five days a week in September 2020.

Our plan is for all pupils, in all year groups, to return to school full-time from the beginning of the autumn term, and on 2 July we published guidance to help schools prepare for this.

This guidance is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak.

Schools have continued to receive their core funding allocations throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Following last year’s Spending Round, school budgets are rising by £2.6 billion in 2020-21, £4.8 billion in 2021-22 and £7.1 billion in 2022-23, compared to 2019-20. As stated in our guidance, schools should use their existing resources when making arrangements to welcome all children back for the autumn.