Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether additional Government funding will be made available to schools to cover the costs those schools have incurred in responding to the covid-19 crisis.

We are providing additional funding to schools, on top of existing budgets, to cover unavoidable costs incurred due to the COVID-19 outbreak that cannot be met from their existing resources.

Schools are eligible to claim for: increased premises related costs associated with keeping schools open over the Easter and summer half term holidays; support for free school meals for eligible children who are not in school, where schools are not using the national voucher scheme; and additional cleaning costs required due to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, over and above the cost of existing cleaning arrangements.

Schools will continue to receive their budgets for the coming year, as usual, regardless of any periods of partial or complete closure.