Academies Bill [Lords]

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

Oh, okay, that’s fine—

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This is an interesting and important debate, but it would help the Speaker and the Hansard writers enormously if we knew who was rising and who the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was giving way to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I am sorry. I was simply trying to catch Miss P’s eye.

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

I do not think that my name is all that difficult to pronounce. It is Pri-mar-olo. “Dawn” or “Miss P” will not do, I am afraid. I call Mr Coaker.

[Vernon Coaker]

Thank you, Ms Primarolo. [Laughter.]

The Government are seeking to save money by cutting the Building Schools for the Future programme, but they say that this expenditure is nothing to do with those cuts. They say that they are economising on low-priority IT projects. That will provide £50 million, and they have already received 38 expressions of interest.

I do not think any of us believe that that really adds up. The £50 million is only until March 2011, and because of the comprehensive spending review, no one has any idea what will happen after that. On 20 April 2010—apparently everything has changed since then, but I think it useful to draw attention to this—The Independent quoted the Secretary of State as saying:

“The capital cost”—

of new free schools, that is—

“will come from reducing spending on the government’s extremely wasteful Building Schools for the Future programme by 15 per cent.”

I know that when a party gets into power things change a little, but the Secretary of State cannot really have believed that there was not a budget for him to use if he wanted to fund his free school experiment. He did not say that last year; he said it on 20 April 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

The fact that 26 of our schools in Liverpool missed the boat and had their BSF projects cancelled was not due to the bureaucracy to which Government Members keep referring. A detailed reorganisation ensured that we now have the right number of schools for the right number of students in the right areas. We do not need any more schools in Liverpool, but we do need schools with suitable buildings in which young people can learn. It is an absolute disgrace that young people in Liverpool will miss out on those suitable premises on the whim of this untested, untrialled free school process on which there has been no consultation.

May I ask my hon. Friend—

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

Briefly.

[Luciana Berger]

May I ask my hon. Friend, very briefly, whether he agrees with what was said the other day by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes)? The hon. Gentleman said:

“It would be a nonsense to take money that could be used for improving existing schools to create new schools where, on the ground, the will of the local community is for the existing schools to continue.”