Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the funding schools require in addition to their learning budgets to manage ongoing costs relating to covid-19 in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.

Teachers, school leaders, and pupils have made a huge contribution to the nation’s efforts to respond to the challenges arising from the COVID-19 outbreak, and the department is very grateful for their continued hard work. Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, the department has ensured that all schools continued to receive their core funding as normal, regardless of any periods of reduced attendance.

The department recognises that some schools may be facing pressures this winter. However, this should be seen in the wider context of funding for schools. At the recent spending review, we announced we are continuing to deliver year on year, real terms per pupil increases to school funding, investing a further £4.7 billion in the core school budget by the 2024-25 financial year compared to previous plans.

This settlement includes a further £1.6 billion in the 2022-23 financial year, on top of the £2.4 billion increase over 2021-22 levels, already announced as part of the 2019 spending round, which will help the school sector respond to the pressures we know they are facing.

School leaders have the flexibility to make their own decisions on how to prioritise their spending to invest in a range of resources and activities that will best support their staff and pupils.

In addition to the increase in core funding for schools, schools will receive a £1 billion recovery premium over the next two years to help those pupils most in need of support to catch up. This will help to deliver evidence-based approaches to support the most disadvantaged pupils and means every school in England will have more money to support young people’s recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

This £1 billion comes on top of recovery interventions announced previously, including £1.5 billion investment in tutoring in schools and colleges, £400 million investment in expanding training opportunities in early years and schools settings, £950 million in flexible funding for schools, £200 million for summer schools, £17 million for early language support, and the opportunity for year 13 students to repeat their final year in the 2021-22 academic year.