Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support further education colleges to invest in low-carbon (a) technology and (b) infrastructure.

Ensuring that every young person has a pathway through further and higher education and into employment is a key pillar of the government’s opportunity and growth missions. The department wants to build a world class further education (FE) system which delivers for the whole nation and supports these missions. A key part of this is ensuring colleges are fit for the future, with better facilities and good quality, sustainable buildings.

At the Autumn Budget 2024, the department announced £950 million of skills capital funding for 2025/26, including £300 million of new funding to support FE colleges to maintain, improve and ensure suitability of their estate. It will be for colleges to decide how to prioritise funding in line with guidance which the department will publish. However, spend could include investment in low-carbon infrastructure in line with the Further Education Generic Design Brief and Technical Annexes, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employers-requirements-for-college-projects-part-a-and-part-b.

As part of the FE Capital Transformation Programme, which is a six-year programme investing more than £1.5 billion to upgrade the FE college estate, the department is working in partnership with sixteen colleges to address some of the worst condition sites in the country. These schemes are being built to the above specifications. One of these projects is the Ashington Campus of Northumberland College, which is a Gen-Zero development, designed to be ultra-low carbon in both construction and operation.

FE colleges are also able to apply to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, administered by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. A number of FE colleges have benefitted from this scheme to invest in measures to achieve net zero in operation at some or all of their sites.

Future investment will depend on the outcomes of the spending review which will be announced later this year.