School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, on 22 May we were able to announce that this Government will fulfil the recommendations of the School Teachers’ Review Body and award a 4% pay increase to our teachers. Alongside that, we were able to announce an additional £615 million to fund that pay increase. That, alongside last year’s acceptance of the STRB’s recommendations, means that, while this Government have been in office, teachers have received a pay increase of nearly 10%. That is a fundamentally important contribution to retaining teachers in our classrooms and recruiting new teachers to be able to meet our 6,500 extra specialist teachers during this Parliament.

Noble Lords opposite, while asking legitimate questions, might like to reflect on the fact that, when we arrived in government, we found on the desks of the DfE the STRB’s recommendations from last year that their Government had run away from implementing. Since this Government have been in office, given the action we have taken not only on pay but on other provisions, we have seen an increase of 2,000 students starting teacher training. We estimate that the actions we have taken will ensure that an additional 2,500 teachers will be retained in the workforce over and above what would have happened had the previous Government continued their action towards teachers.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches we welcome the Government’s acceptance in full of the School Teachers’ Review Body and the additional resources provided. However, there is a financial impact on schools having to implement the pay rises from their existing budgets. Given that half the schools are already considering staff cuts, and 45% of secondary head teachers are using pupil premium funding to fill budget gaps, can the Minister clarify the efficiencies the Government believe are still available to be found within existing school budgets?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we have inherited a situation where school budgets are stretched. That is why we have already made available an additional £2.3 billion for the core schools budget in the October 2024 Budget, of which £1 billion was for high needs. We have also made available, on top of that, £930 million to support schools with the cost of the national insurance contributions increase in March 2025. There is also, as I have already said, £615 million for the 2025 pay awards. That means that, while this Government have been in power, we have seen the core schools budget increase from £61.6 billion to £65.3 billion.

There will be productivity challenges for schools and the Government have been clear that, as with other parts of the public sector, we will look to support schools in finding 1% of efficiencies to contribute to the ability to pay the pay award. That is alongside considerable funding support; considerable additional funding, on top of the efficiencies, to fund the pay award; and work that the department is doing with schools to help them find those efficiencies. That is a responsible way to balance the need for teachers—who are the most important in-school determinant of children’s success—in our classrooms with our responsibility to the taxpayer to ensure that public money is spent as effectively as possible.