School Openings: January 2022 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Bull
Main Page: Baroness Bull (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Bull's debates with the Department for Education
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberI am not sure that the House would want me to go through all the plans, but the top line we have learned—I think we knew this before, but we know it more vividly now—is that the safest place for children is to be in school. On digital connection, we have distributed more than 1.35 million devices to ensure that children can be connected to education remotely, but we also funded the Oak National Academy, which is providing excellent online resources that can be used both in a classroom and at home.
My Lords, given what we know about the crucial role that ventilation plays in the fight against the spread of Covid in classrooms, might the Government reconsider their commitment to fund the provision of air filtration devices only for SEND and AP schools, rather than all schools? Does she not agree that it should surely be a priority to ensure that all schools can access this crucial mechanism for protection, not just those that happen to have some budget spare?
The noble Baroness’s tone is a little harsh in saying “budget spare”. We are talking about making sure our classrooms are safe for children, which is why we prioritise the distribution of devices to children with special educational needs and children in alternative provision. Indeed, beyond CO2 monitors, we have disrupted 1,000 ventilation devices to those schools and launched a marketplace where schools can buy purification devices at the best prices.