Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that procurement and design standards for cooling systems in schools distinguish between systems that cool and recirculate indoor air and those that combine cooling with fresh-air ventilation and effective air filtration.

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.