Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of high energy prices on school budgets.

The Government is prioritising further funding for schools. The Autumn Statement has provided an additional increase in the core schools’ budget of £2.3 billion in both 2023/24 and 2024/25. After adjusting budgets down to account for the removal of the compensation for employer costs of the Health and Social Care Levy, this brings the core schools budget to a total of £58.8 billion in 2024/25, £2.0 billion greater than published in the 2021 Spending Review. Schools' funding is already £4 billion higher this year than last year, and this additional funding means it will rise by another £3.5 billion next year. Taken together, that means a 15% increase in funding in two years. This should help schools to tackle the inflationary pressures that they are facing.

Schools have also received significant support from the Government’s Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which will run until April 2023. An HM Treasury led review of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) will determine support for non-domestic consumers in the UK from 1 April 2023, with results to be published by the end of 2022. Schools will continue to receive the EBRS until 31 March 2023.

The Department knows that each school’s circumstances are different, and where schools are in serious financial difficulty, they should contact their Local Authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.