Public Services

Debate between Angela Rayner and Anne Main

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

We have excellent schools, both state and private, in Hertfordshire and St Albans. The state schools will have an increase, which they welcome; the private schools are terrified that they will be scrapped under Labour’s proposals. What are the Labour party’s plans for increasing capacity within the state system for all the trashed private schools that will find themselves out of business?

[Angela Rayner]

Conservative Members need not scaremonger, because the only thing that schools across England fear is more austerity and more broken promises from the Conservative party. Let me be absolutely clear: what the Labour party will not do is subsidise private education with taxpayers’ money when our state schools are crippled by the Conservative party. I pledge this to every parent across the country: I will not play party politics with their children. I will ensure that every child in this country gets the opportunity they deserve whether that is through a SEND, the comprehensive system, an academy, a free school, or in private schools. All their children matter to me, unlike the Conservative party.

School Funding

Debate between Angela Rayner and Anne Main

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

It is interesting that the hon. Lady says that. That may be the case from today onwards, but that £1.3 billion figure takes no account of the £2.7 billion that her Government have already taken from schools, so they still face cash cuts between 2015 and 2020. Our motion offers the Government the support of the House to change that and to put their own words into practice.

Schools increasingly face an environment that is completely unacceptable in a country like ours. Earlier this month, teachers warned of a growing child poverty crisis. Staff said that children were coming into school without clean clothes. We even heard that pupils were showing signs of malnutrition. I doubt that anyone—in this place or outside—thought they would read headlines like that in 2018, but every part of our children’s education system is experiencing a funding squeeze.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentioned malnutrition. Does she acknowledge that it took a Conservative-led Government to introduce the free schools programme and invest £26 million in a nutritional breakfasts programme to help young people? Surely she would welcome that.

[Angela Rayner]

If the hon. Lady casts her mind back, she will remember that at the general election her Government offered school breakfasts at 6p a breakfast. I do not know how they thought they could feed children for 6p a breakfast. I will take no lectures from Government Members given that, after six months, the Government still do not have a chair for their Social Mobility Commission.

Our motion offers the Government the support of the House to change that and to put their words into practice. Earlier this month, teachers warned of a growing child poverty crisis. The Government should support children and their families from the beginning of their lives, but funding for Sure Start has been slashed by hundreds of millions of pounds and 1,200 Sure Start centres have been lost since the Tories came to power. School funding cuts have left more children crammed into super-size classes, there are fewer subjects on offer and the school day has even been squeezed.