Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which schools in the City of Durham are yet to receive air cleaning units.

During the autumn term, we provided carbon dioxide monitors to all state-funded education providers, including early years, schools, and further education providers, backed by £25 million in government funding.

We have now delivered on our public commitment with over 353,000 monitors delivered in the Autumn term. Feedback suggests that schools are finding the monitors helpful to manage ventilation and, in most schools, colleges and nurseries, existing ventilation measures are sufficient.

The department will also make up to 8,000 air cleaning units available for poorly ventilated teaching spaces in state-funded education providers, where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible.

Deliveries will start from next week to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision schools, colleges, and nurseries. These were allocated in the first application round announced in November 2021.

The second round of applications is open until 9am on 17 January 2022. All state funded schools, colleges and nurseries can apply.  Special and alternative provision providers that were not successful or did not apply in the first round are also eligible to apply in this round. Once applications have closed, all applications will be assessed against strict criteria and allocated to providers based on need. Schools, colleges and nurseries with successful applications will be contacted individually to arrange delivery, with deliveries expected from February 2022.

For those providers that are not eligible for funded units, the online marketplace provides a route to purchasing air cleaning units directly from suppliers at a suitable specification and competitive price. Further information is available here: https://s107t01-webapp-v2-01.azurewebsites.net/list/air-cleaning.