Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government from which department's budget the roll-out of defibrillators for schools across England will be funded.

The government announced on 17 July 2022 that it would be providing defibrillators to all state funded schools in England that did not already have them. The government committed to providing eligible schools with these devices by the end of the 2022/23 academic year.

The department created a new budget in 2022/23 and 2023/24 to fund the provision of defibrillators. This budget was created from a reprioritisation of departmental underspend. Deliveries to all eligible secondary schools is now complete with approximately 11,000 defibrillators delivered to over 8,500 eligible schools.

The department is on track to complete deliveries of defibrillators to the remaining primary and special educational needs and disabilities schools by the end of the academic year.

In addition, the government has agreed to provide funding of £1 million to design a grant scheme for the expansion of automatic electronic defibrillator provision, that increases the number and accessibility of publicly supported access to defibrillators.

It is estimated that 1,000 new defibrillators will be provided by the fund, with the potential for this number to increase, as successful grant applicants will be asked to match the funding they receive, either partially or fully.