Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 5 January 2022 to 94337 on Schools: Air Conditioning, whether Ministers made any request to civil servants overseeing procurement for the filtration device marketplace as to (a) companies and (b) devices to be (i) included in and (ii) excluded from that process.

There were no requests received from ministers in the procurement process and establishment of the online marketplace. Air cleaning devices that met the approved technical specification were included on the marketplace, and devices were only excluded if they failed to meet the technical specification. All the suppliers’ bids were subject to independent expert scrutiny to maintain objectivity and conformance to the specification.

The department’s specification was developed through a rigorous consultation with industry-wide experts in both air cleaning and ventilation from academia, professional bodies, and industry, including chartered engineers, scientists, and several government departments. Through this consultation the department has developed a specification specific to education, focusing on key drivers including classroom size, acoustics, clean air delivery and filtration as well as requiring strong evidence to verify manufacturers' claims.