Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on indoor air quality, ventilation, and learning environments in schools, of different cooling methods, including (1) air conditioning, (2) mechanical ventilation, and (3) other cooling interventions; and whether they will ensure capital investment programmes in schools are required to deliver improvements in indoor air quality, not just thermal comfort.

We are improving infrastructure and strengthening resilience across the education estate through our Education Estates Strategy.

The strategy includes a new £710 million Renewal and Retrofit Programme to improve condition and climate resilience, investing almost £3 billion per year by 2034/35 in capital maintenance and improvement of schools and colleges. The department is also investing almost £20 billion in the School Rebuilding Programme through to 2034/35, delivering climate‑resilient buildings at over 750 schools.

We have recently launched a new construction framework and updated design standards, setting our requirements for all new and refurbished school buildings delivered by the department. These standards promote integrated environmental design and cover overheating risk assessments, cross-ventilation, indoor air quality and the use of cooling through ground-source heat pumps.