Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance he has given to schools and colleges whose fixed-term energy contracts have recently ended on whether to sign new contracts before the energy bills support scheme announced on 8 September 2022 is implemented.

On 21 September 2022, the Government set out how businesses and public sector organisations, including schools and colleges, will be supported by the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This includes guidance on what that means for organisations on both fixed term contracts and variable tariffs.

Any school which has signed a fixed energy contract since April 2022 will be eligible for support if, at the time they signed their contact, wholesale prices for the next 6 months were expected to be higher than the Government supported price of £211/MWh for electricity, and £75/MWh for gas.

For example, a school which uses 10 MWh of electricity and 22 MWh of gas a month and signed a fixed contract giving them a current monthly energy bill of about £10,000, would receive support based on the difference between expected wholesale prices when they signed their contract and the Government supported price. For a contract signed in July 2022, this could be worth £240/MWh for electricity and £70/MWh for gas, meaning the school receives a discount of £4,000 per month, reducing their original bill by 40%.

Support will also be available to schools on variable, deemed and other contracts.

The Department has engaged with schools and colleges via the Department for Education’s sector bulletin, directing them to the guidance published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.