Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with regards to the remote education support scheme being offered by mobile phone networks in partnership with the Department for Education, how many pupils are receiving the support offered by (a) EE, (b) O2, (c) Sky Mobile, (d) SMARTY, (e) Tesco Mobile, (f) Three, (g) Virgin Mobile, (f) Vodafone as of 28th January 2021.

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 8 February 2021, over 986,000 laptops and tablets have been delivered to schools, trusts, local authorities, and further education providers.

Laptops and tablets are owned by schools, trusts or local authorities who can lend these to children and young people who need them most, during the current COVID-19 restrictions.

The Government is providing this significant injection of devices on top of an estimated 2.9 million laptops and tablets already owned by schools before the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Figures on the number of devices already delivered is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data/2021-week-6. These figures are broken down by local authority and academy trust.

The Department have already provided over 63,000 4G wireless routers, with free data for the academic year, and continue to provide 4G wireless routers where children need to access remote education. Data regarding the number of routers delivered is also published at the site above.

To support access to the internet, the Department 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.

The Department are grateful to EE, O2, Sky Mobile, Smarty, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, BT Mobile and Lycamobile for supporting this offer. We are continuing to invite a range of mobile network providers to support the offer. Data regarding the number of pupils receiving free mobile data will be published shortly.