Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has plans to restore the core schools budget to 2010 in real terms.

Overall core revenue funding for schools totals almost £61.6 billion for the 2024/25 financial year. The overall core schools budget (CSB) is increasing by £3.2 billion in 2025/26, meaning the CSB will total over £64.8 billion.

The latest schools funding statistics release from 30 January shows that, adjusted for inflation using the GDP deflator, funding per pupil for 5 to16-year-olds stood at a little under £7,400 in the 2010/11 financial year in 2024/25 prices. This has risen to £8,020 in the 2025/26 financial year in 2024/25 prices. This does not take into account the increase of over £900 million this government is also providing for schools and high needs settings to support them with the cost of National Insurance contributions increases. Funding per pupil in the 2025/26 financial year is therefore higher than the level reached in the 2010/11 financial year, in real terms.

These increases, against the backdrop of a challenging fiscal picture, demonstrate the government’s commitment to enabling every child to achieve.