Schools: Primary School Places

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to create 450,000 additional primary school places across England before the next general election.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, while it is the responsibility of local authorities to manage the supply of primary places, we have doubled the rate of spending on primary school places from the levels we inherited. In addition, we have allocated a further £1.1 billion over the past year, bringing to £2.7 billion the total we have given to local authorities so far to support additional places. We are working closely with local authorities and will work to reduce costs so that every pound spent goes as far as possible.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Can he assure parents that sufficient, properly designed classrooms will be provided to meet all this extra demand? Does he agree that it is unacceptable for teaching to take place in temporary buildings that are not designed for this purpose, as increasingly seems to be the case currently? Do the Government now accept the folly of cancelling the Building Schools for the Future project without having a comparative school-building programme in place? Why are they continuing to give priority to funding new free schools when are not necessarily sited in places of greatest demand and there still remains a shortfall in funding for the more urgently needed extra primary places?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, trying to work backwards, first, so far as free schools are concerned, of the primary schools that we announced on Friday with proposals to come forward for 2013, nearly 90% of those are in areas of basic need where there is a shortage of places. I agree that good design is important but do not accept that temporary buildings cannot be part of a solution. Local authorities need to be free to make the judgments that they think are best to respond to the pressures that they have locally. Generally, as I said with the figures that I have set out, we have doubled the funding we are putting into primary school places. The birth rate started to rise in 2002; it peaked in 2008; so the Government are trying to address a serious challenge in the problem of the growing numbers that we have inherited.