Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) laptops and (b) other remote learning devices his Department has provided to West Sussex schools during covid-19 closures since March 2020; and what estimate his Department has made of the value of those devices.

The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. As of Monday 8 February 2021, this includes over 980,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities.

All schools, academy trusts and local authorities have now been given the opportunity to order devices. Laptops and tablets are owned by schools, academy trusts or local authorities to lend to children and young people who need them most during the current COVID-19 restrictions.

Figures on the number of devices delivered, broken down by local authority and academy trust are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data.

Where schools need additional devices above their allocations they should contact the Department’s service team at covid.technology@education.gov.uk. They should include the number of disadvantaged pupils in Years 3 to 11 who require support and an explanation of how they have gathered this evidence.

The Department is also able to supply routers and mobile data through this scheme. We have 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. We are grateful to EE, O2, Sky Mobile, Smarty, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, BT Mobile and Lycamobile for their collaboration. We are currently engaged with additional mobile network operators and continue to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer.

The Department has delivered 54,000 4G wireless routers for pupils and care leavers without connection at home, have secured an additional 19,000 routers which we are distributing now and will be procuring more in the next few weeks.