Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, these things happen at a quarter past three. It is an occupational hazard.

Free schools are one part of our expansion. This decade will have the largest expansion in school capacity for at least two generations, with 1 million new school places added and £7 billion of investment committed over the period.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I am really pleased that the Secretary of State eagerly anticipates the next Labour Government, just like so many parents and teachers, but let me be clear: our policy is no threat to any new or existing school, unlike the Government’s cuts. His Department’s accounts show that the academies sector ran a £2 billion operating deficit last year. Their net financial position is down overall and more trusts closed last year than ever before. He admitted last week that education needs billions more, so will he be asking the Chancellor to reverse all his cuts in full and in real terms?

[Damian Hinds]

We are investing in the school system, both through the additional £1.3 billion we found last year and through the capital moneys, to which I just referred, to fund the large expansion in the school system. Although these are questions to the Government, I think that everybody would be keen to hear more from the hon. Lady about how no school would be under threat from Labour party policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. Through the national funding formula—the fairer formula—we are taking on something that successive Governments have dodged to make sure that funding is based on need and the characteristics of pupils, rather than accidents of history.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

No wonder the Secretary of State has been slapped down by his own stats watchdog four times since he took office. The IFS found that per pupil funding is hundreds of pounds lower in real terms than it was in 2015 and is set to fall again next year without new funding, so I ask him again: will he be asking the Chancellor to reverse all his cuts in full and in real terms?

[Damian Hinds]

I have not been slapped down four times by anybody, to the best of my recollection. I appreciate the difficulties in managing school budgets, and I appreciate that those budgets are tight, but it is also true that we spend a great deal more on schools than we used to and that, by international standards, on multiple measures, we spend a relatively high amount on state education in this country.

[Angela Rayner]

I am really pleased that the Secretary of State has since clarified that the Chancellor’s “little extras” should in fact be called “small additional capital projects”. Perhaps he can also clarify that school capital spending has already been cut by nearly £4 billion a year. So the Budget offered very little and no extra. Now that the Prime Minister has promised austerity is over, will the Secretary of State ask the Chancellor to fully restore the education capital budget in real terms?