Education Funding

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make the point that there was a mismatch between the commitment to rebuild or refurbish so many schools and what any member of the Labour Cabinet would have known to be the true state of the public finances.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am assuming that all of the £210 million of BSF money for Hammersmith and Fulham is gone, including the £20 million for Phoenix high school—one of the most deprived yet improved schools in the country, and where the Secretary of State gave the address at the last presentation evening—and the £21 million for William Morris sixth form, of which I should declare I am a governor. But how are we supposed to know all that from a disgraceful statement comprising four pages of point-scoring waffle and one page that is totally unclear? The language of financial close is not the language that our local authorities have been using with us, so will the Secretary of State please not blame us or our local authorities, but instead blame his Government for not even being clear about which school projects they are cutting?

[Michael Gove]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman feels that way. I appreciate that Phoenix school in his constituency—a school that I have visited, as he rightly pointed out—is an excellent school. The language of financial close is not my language; it is the language that has been chosen for Building Schools for the Future. It was the language developed by the Government of whom he was a part and the language used by the shadow Education Secretary.