Independent Schools: Tax Changes
Debate between Lord Watts and Baroness Smith of Malvern(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
No, because I am proud that this Government are prioritising investment in the 93% of our children who attend state schools. On the point about the legal action that the noble Lord started his question with, that was a legal case won by the Government. It was found that the Government had not, as was asserted during the debates on this, acted in contradiction to human rights legislation.
On the final point about the numbers, the Government always said that they thought there would be an increase in the numbers of children potentially coming into state schools. That has been around 3,000, which is exactly in keeping with what the Government said at the time of introducing this legislation.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the last Tory Government cut school budgets for 93% of pupils, let our schools run down and end up in a bad state of repair and refused to pay our teachers a proper wage to work in our schools, and yet they have the cheek to worry about a few people in private schools. Does the Minister agree?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, this Government worry about people in all schools. My noble friend is right that as a Government we have a job to put right some of the underinvestment of the last Conservative Government and to deliver our pledge to ensure that there are 6,500 new specialist teachers in secondary and special schools. That is what we are focused on, and that is what we will be investing in.
Primary Schools: Swimming Lessons
Debate between Lord Watts and Baroness Smith of Malvern(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness identifies probably one of the many barriers that prevent parents and their children being able to swim if they are living in poverty. I am not aware of whether expecting branded swimming items is a barrier to children being able to swim, but if it is that is clearly wrong. I suspect that would be covered by the provisions in the Bill that we will receive in the near future to ensure that school uniform is not a barrier to children being able to learn, in this case, a very important skill.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard, under the last Tory Government a lot of swimming baths were closed. The failure of that Government is a fact that they do not like to be reminded of. Is it not the case that deprived areas had their pools closed? Should we not look again at whether we should provide new swimming pools in the most deprived parts of Britain?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right. I have already identified the decrease in the number of public pools, as others have. He also makes an important point about ensuring that there is access to public leisure facilities on a fair basis. The responsibility for that lies at the local authority level. We are continuing to encourage local authorities to invest in leisure facilities, notwithstanding the considerable pressures on their funding that they have faced over recent years.