Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether recipients of laptops for remote education will incur a financial penalty if those laptops are stolen or damaged.

The Government is investing over £300 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing over one million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. This includes over 560,000 laptops and tablets that have already been delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities in 2020.

The laptops and tablets are the property of the school, local authority or academy trust, and they should assume responsibility for their ongoing maintenance and support as part of this. The Department will not apply financial penalties for devices that are lost or stolen and schools – academy trusts and local authorities should manage devices reported as lost or stolen, in line with their organisational policies.

If a device develops a fault that is not caused by a user, the school, local authority or academy trust that owns it can request a free replacement.