Teachers Strike
Debate between Dawn Butler and Nick Gibb(8 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Trade Union Act 2016 will ensure that industrial action in essential services gets the go-ahead only after a ballot of at least 50% of members. Bearing in mind that the turnout for this ballot was just 24.5%, this strike would not be legal if the new regulations had taken effect. We are consulting with stakeholders on the regulations, and the thresholds are likely to come into force later this year.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
I received a message today from Nicola, a teacher—I am sure her class is not full of twins—who said that she is trying to work out how to fit next year’s class of 34 into a room with furniture for just 28 children, while also making leaving cards for four members of staff. What does the Minister have to say to Nicola?
Mr Gibb
What I would say is that the percentage of pupils in infant classes of more than 30 is 5.8%, which is down from 6.2% in January 2015. In the last five or six years, we have created 600,000 more school places. We have doubled the amount of capital going into creating new school places, compared with that spent by the previous Labour Government. Incidentally, they removed 200,000 primary school places, which is the problem we have had to tackle, and they did not plan for the increased birth rate.