Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to enable schools to become more energy efficient.

The Department supports sustainability through our capital funding and programmes, both to reduce carbon and save schools money on energy. Responsible bodies, such as local authorities, academy trusts and dioceses can use their capital funding allocations to invest in improving energy efficiency in schools.

Since 2015, the Department has allocated £11.3 billion to maintain and improve school buildings, including improving energy efficiency. This includes £1.8 billion in the current 2021/22 financial year. In addition, the 10 year school rebuilding programme has been launched with a commitment to 500 rebuilding projects over the next decade. This will replace school buildings that are ageing or in poor condition with modern, energy efficient designs, transforming education for thousands of pupils.

The Further Education Capital Transformation Fund delivers the Government’s £1.5 billion commitment to upgrade the estate of both further education (FE) colleges and designated institutions in England. This will target colleges in the worst condition whilst supporting the Government's objectives on achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Alongside this substantial investment in the school and FE estate, we have provided schools and responsible bodies with guidance on energy efficiency such as minimising energy, water and waste within our Good Estate Management for Schools manual. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/good-estate-management-for-schools.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy set up the £1 billion Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme in 2020 which provided grants for eligible public sector bodies, including schools, to fund energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation measures. Higher education institutions were also eligible for these grants. Phase 2 of this scheme opened in April 2021 and will allocate £75 million of funding.