Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) pupils are eligible for digital devices and (b) digital devices have (i) been and (ii) yet to be delivered in each region.

The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. This includes over 750,000 laptops and tablets that have been delivered to schools, trusts and local authorities by the end of last week.

Figures on the number of devices delivered, including by local authority, is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data. These figures are broken down by local authority and academy trust, depending on which organisation ordered devices. Information on delivery by region is not available.

Our overall commitment of 1.3 million devices is comparable with Ofcom’s UK-wide estimate that between 1.14 million and 1.78 million children in total in the UK have no home access to a laptop, desktop, or tablet. We have allocated devices based on recent data on the number of pupils eligible for free school meals.

We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data to help disadvantaged children get online as well as delivering 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home.