Budget Statement

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome my new noble friend Lord Khan and commend him on an excellent speech, not least his nod to Kamala Harris.

I would like to address my remarks to the measures in the Budget impacting education, but if I did it would not require anything like two minutes—this despite schools and colleges having faced excess costs associated with the pandemic which they have had to meet from their own resources. They deserved government support not only to get children back to school but to ensure they stay there safely. They got none. Teachers have been working flat out for the past year and deserved to have that recognised. Instead, the public sector pay freeze means that 94% of teachers will not receive a pay increase, which is shameful and will be demoralising for many.

The Budget might also have delivered desperately needed support for the early years sector; many nursery providers have stated that they do not expect to be in existence by the end of this year. Despite having remained open to assist the economy during school closures, early years settings have received no help. As my noble friend Lady Andrews said, it is investment in public services that makes us resilient.

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, mentioned apprenticeships. The one education-related measure announced by the Chancellor seems to be an attempt to kick-start them. Certainly, they have declined alarmingly during the pandemic, but if employers were not willing to take on a young apprentice with a 13% wage subsidy, it seems unlikely that they will do so with the subsidy increased to 20%. Labour has proposed funding to create up to 85,000 new opportunities, with half of a new young apprentice’s wages in the first year of their apprenticeship paid by the Government, saving employers more than £3,500 per apprentice. We have costed this subsidy at around £300 million—precisely the unspent apprenticeship levy funds from 2019-20, which the DfE returned to the Treasury.

As a former Education Minister, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, might care to address the absence of measures to support that sector in his closing remarks.