In line with my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement last year, we intend to invest up to £250,000 per year for 3 years (a total of £750,000) from the 2026/27 financial year to partner with an organisation to deliver a national chess in schools programme. This programme will aim to increase pupils’ participation in chess in schools across all nine regions of England.

It will prioritise mainstream primary and secondary schools with higher proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals, as well as special schools and alternative provision settings, and will include work to improve access for girls and pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.

The government will provide £410 million per year by 2028-29 to expand Free School Meals eligibility from September 2026 to all pupils in England with a parent receiving Universal Credit. The government will also provide £80 million per year by 2028-29 for early years and post-16 settings to support this expansion.

The Welsh Government will receive the Barnett consequential for this policy in the usual way.

I refer the noble Lord to the answer of 16 December 2024 to Question 19397.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

In the 2023/24 financial year, the department allocated £200,000 through the Strengthening Chess in Primary Schools grant, supporting primary schools to improve their pupils’ access to chess.

More broadly, at the Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced an additional £2.3 billion for mainstream schools and young people with high needs for the 2025/26 financial year, compared to 2024/25. This means that overall core school funding will total almost £63.9 billion next year.

Each year schools receive core funding from the department to cover their expenditures. These expenditures could include teacher salaries, school lunches, electronic resources, art and craft supplies, or any other number of items.

It is for headteachers to decide how best to manage their budgets, including spending on the promotion of extracurricular activities such as chess. This funding is not ringfenced.

Schools may also choose to utilise their pupil premium funding to support enrichment. The pupil premium grant is funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools in England. Schools must use this funding in line with the menu of approaches which are based on the evidence of how best to improve attainment for disadvantaged pupils. This includes the flexibility to use pupil premium to tackle non-academic barriers to success, including providing enrichment opportunities to benefit those pupils who may not be able to have access otherwise.

I thank the noble Lord for his question. This is a devolved matter, but it is something that we work closely with the Senedd on. To reassure the noble Lord, there are challenges with recruiting music teachers in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Last year, under the previous Government, we managed to meet only 21.8% of the recruitment target for arts teachers and music teachers. That is why this Government have announced an increase in teacher trainer incentives for 2025-26 and will be paying a £10,000 tax-free bursary to teachers who sign up to teach art. We look forward to engaging with our colleagues across all the nations to see how we can share best practice.

The department does not collect this information. However, schools are free to teach whichever languages they choose to suit the needs of their pupils.

Responsibility for keeping buildings safe and well-maintained lies with schools and their responsible bodies. Where the department is alerted to significant safety issues with a school building, that cannot be managed within local resources, it provides additional support on a case-by-case basis. The department provides immediate advisory support in all cases.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are responsible for setting the policy and regulations for schools on asbestos management and compliance.

The department follows the HSE’s advice that, provided asbestos-containing materials are in good condition and unlikely to be disturbed, it is generally safest to manage them in place. Where asbestos-containing materials are likely to be disturbed by maintenance works or daily use of the building and cannot be easily protected, schools should have them removed. The department has allocated over £15 billion since 2015 to support this work, including £1.8 billion committed for 2023/24

The department has published bespoke guidance on asbestos management for schools in 2020 and is working with HSE and the sector to look at further ways to help them and build on existing guidance and support.

The funding for promoting chess in schools in England was funded from within existing budgets. As such, there are no additional Barnett consequentials from this decision.

The Department for Education continues to advise against both overnight and non-overnight domestic (UK) and overseas educational visits (trips). This advice is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-travel-advice-for-educational-settings/coronavirus-travel-guidance-for-educational-settings.

In the autumn term, schools can resume non-overnight domestic educational visits. Guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.

All such visits should be compliant with COVID-19 guidelines and subject to a thorough and ongoing assessment of the risks to ensure that they can be undertaken safely. Schools should consult the health and safety guidance on educational visits when considering any visit, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-safety-on-educational-visits/health-and-safety-on-educational-visits.

Schools should not resume overnight visits for the time-being. This is consistent with the latest government guidance on meeting people from outside your household, which advises that you should not stay overnight away from your home with members of more than 2 households: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-people-from-outside-your-household-from-4-july.

The above guidance will remain under review and will be updated in line with guidance from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for Transport and Public Health England.

Sports and physical activity facilities play a crucial role in supporting adults and children to be active. The Government has made it clear that it will adopt a phased approach based on scientific and medical advice, and that the primary goal is to protect public health.

The government has released new guidance to enable competitive grassroots team sports to be played – starting with cricket from 11 July. The government has asked individual sports including rugby union and rugby league to consider the steps that would need to be taken, and the conditions that would need to be met, for their activity to resume. Once those plans have been cleared by the government, the sport will be able to return.

The responsibility for the management of asbestos in schools in Wales is devolved to the Welsh Government and does not rest with the Department for Education. I understand, however, that the Welsh Government intends issuing similar guidance on asbestos management to schools in Wales shortly.

The Health and Safety Executive has responsibility for regulations and guidance as it applies to the management and control of asbestos in all workplaces in Great Britain, including schools. However, within this framework, the development of policies for the management and control of asbestos in schools is a matter for the Welsh Government.

The report by the Committee on Carcinogenicity was commissioned by the Department of Education. The report was a statement on the vulnerability of children to asbestos and made no recommendations; however, in England, the Department for Education is undertaking a review of its policy on asbestos management in schools. It is for the Welsh Government to decide whether they wish to review any policies as a result of the report.

The Health and Safety Executive has responsibility for regulations and guidance as it applies to the management and control of asbestos in all workplaces in Great Britain, including schools. However, within this framework, the development of policies for the management and control of asbestos in schools is a matter for the Welsh Government.

The report by the Committee on Carcinogenicity was commissioned by the Department of Education. The report was a statement on the vulnerability of children to asbestos and made no recommendations; however, in England, the Department for Education is undertaking a review of its policy on asbestos management in schools. It is for the Welsh Government to decide whether they wish to review any policies as a result of the report.

Cwmcarn High School was closed by Caerphilly County Borough Council on 12 October 2012 following the receipt of an ‘asbestos investigation report’ commissioned by the Council.

As a result of the decision to close the school, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the arrangements that were in place to manage asbestos at the school. This investigation included a visual inspection for damaged asbestos materials and other indicators

of releases of asbestos into the air within the school. The investigation also considered the findings of a number of specialist reports into the management of asbestos at the school. These enquiries found no evidence that normal occupation of the school poses a risk to health from asbestos materials within the school buildings.

A report of HSE’s investigation was published on 19 July 2013.

The Department for Education does not collect information on the presence and condition of asbestos in schools or the estimated cost of clearing it. The control of asbestos regulations require duty holders to collect this information.

The Department for Education does not have information on the number of schools in England that have been cleared of asbestos during the past five years or the estimated cost of doing so. These are matters for the duty holders and the local management of schools.

However, we know that the majority of existing schools were built in the period up to 1999 when the use of asbestos was banned. Up until then, asbestos was used in some form in most building works, whether domestic or non-domestic.

The Department for Education does not collect information on the presence and condition of asbestos in schools or the estimated cost of clearing it. The control of asbestos regulations require duty holders to collect this information.

The Department for Education does not have information on the number of schools in England that have been cleared of asbestos during the past five years or the estimated cost of doing so. These are matters for the duty holders and the local management of schools.

I am aware of the situation at Cwmcarn High School in Caerphilly, Wales where there were concerns about asbestos exposure and whether warm air cabinet heaters in the school were spreading fibres.

The national publicity of this case will have helped to highlight the need for all schools to make sure they are treating the management of asbestos very seriously. The investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the situation at Cwmcarn is still under way and it is appropriate to wait until they have concluded their investigation and reported before deciding what action, if any, DfE should take.

The DfE published guidance on the management of asbestos in schools in October 2012, and we will review this guidance if necessary once the outcome of the current HSE investigation is known.

Statistics on deaths from mesothelioma by occupational group are published periodically by the Health and Safety Executive. The classification of occupations used allows identification of (1) teaching assistants, (2) nursery nurses and (3) school secretaries but not (4) school caretakers, (5) school cleaners or (6) school kitchen staff.

The statistics are based on the last occupation of the deceased as recorded on death certificates and do

not reflect the lifetime employment of the individuals or, therefore, the number of deaths caused by asbestos exposure during the course of work in these occupations.

HSE has advised that during the period 2001-2010 the number of mesothelioma deaths for identifiable occupations is as follows:

(1) teaching assistants (listed occupational group is educational assistants)— 8;

(2) nursery nurses—9; and

(3) school secretaries—8.

These are figures for Great Britain. There are no available data on the actual number of former school staff that have died of mesothelioma as a consequence of asbestos exposure in schools.

The Department for Education does not hold information on the management of schools in Wales and Scotland, as this is a matter for the devolved Administrations.

The Health and Safety Executive is responsible for enforcement of health and safety legislation in schools across Great Britain. The HSE delivers this role within the framework for health and safety set by the Government in Good Health and Safety, Good for Everyone.

The HSE has advised that since 2007 it has undertaken three initiatives to sample how schools and local authorities manage asbestos in schools; these inspections involved schools in England, Wales and Scotland. The HSE has no plans to proactively inspect the standards of asbestos management in local authority administered schools, but is planning to inspect a sample of 150 schools that are outside of local authority control. These inspections will take place in 2013-14 and the schools that will be inspected have not yet been selected. The HSE will publish the findings of these inspections to raise awareness of the requirements to manage asbestos in all schools.

There are legal duties for the management of asbestos under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012. The department published guidance on the management of asbestos for schools in England in October 2012; this guidance is intended to raise awareness among head teachers, governors and other duty-holders to help them to fulfil their responsibilities to manage asbestos effectively in line with the regulations.

There has been no such assessment.

Personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education can provide a context for schools to teach pupils about basic emergency procedures and where to get help at primary school; and at secondary school, develop the skills to cope with emergency situations that require basic first aid procedures, including, resuscitation techniques.

We trust head teachers to use their professional judgment to decide the content of their school’s PSHE programme according to the needs of their pupils, and to access appropriate training for their staff.