Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has plans to meet with the Climate Change Committee to discuss the potential impact of climate change on the schools’ estate.

The department welcomes the Climate Change Committee’s Well-Adapted UK report which highlights risks to critical infrastructure including schools. Departmental officials will be attending engagement sessions with the Climate Change Committee throughout 2026 on behalf of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education.

The department’s Education Estates Strategy, plans for an estate that supports opportunity for all and is safe, suitable, sustainable and sufficiently sized. It is backed by a 10-year plan to deliver a decade of renewal to transform schools and colleges.

The strategy is supported by the Renewal and Retrofit Programme. This new initiative is backed by £710 million to 2029-30, to improve the condition of school and college buildings and increase resilience to climate change. An investment of almost £20 billion in the School Rebuilding Programme through to 2034-35 will deliver buildings that are future proofed for climate change.

Details of the strategy is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-estates-strategy.

We will also continue to drive the behavioural change needed to make the education estate more climate resilient by increasing the reach of the Sustainability Support Programme to all settings.

The Sustainability Support Programme is available at: https://www.sustainabilitysupportforeducation.org.uk/.