Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential rise in cost of rent, utilities, insurance, and food costs on the sustainability of schools.

In March 2026, we published the 2026 Schools Costs Technical Note, which includes an estimate of cost pressures for schools’ non-staff costs over the 2026/27 and 2027/28 financial years. The analysis shows £1 billion of headroom in schools’ budgets over the next two years, after taking into account the expected rise in non-staff costs.

The department is helping schools and trusts to go further to unlock additional value. We established the Maximising Value for Pupils programme in December 2025 to help schools and groups seize opportunities to maximise value from every pound spent. This includes initiatives like our forthcoming new agency supply staff framework which will tackle excessive supplier margins and the department’s Energy for Schools service, which aggregates sector buying power to protect schools from market volatility; following a successful pilot which identified average savings of 36%, over 1,000 schools are already benefitting from the scheme.