Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

We have delayed the increase until September 2015 to give schools and head teachers time to plan; protected the schools budget in real terms in 2015-16; and—I know that my right hon. Friend will welcome this—allocated an extra £390 million to raise school funding in the most underfunded parts of the country. All those measures mean that the increase in pension costs is affordable.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

5. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the provision of primary school places in a) Kingswood constituency and b) England.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Some 260,000 additional school places were created between May 2010 and May 2013, and we are on track to meet the extra pressures for places across the country.

[Chris Skidmore]

Since May 2010 a new 420-place primary school has been approved in Kingswood, to open in September 2015, as well as another 420 primary school places in other schools. This week, a new £5.4 million primary school has been approved for Emersons Green East. Can the Minister estimate the total amount of extra funding and investment that has gone into the Kingswood constituency for primary school places in the past four years?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate him on his work to help us ensure additional places in his constituency. I confirm that under the previous Labour Government, £17 million was made available in his local authority area for basic need, and that has risen to £23 million in this Parliament. We have allocated another £9 million over the next two years, meaning that £32 million extra has been made available by this coalition Government for school places in my hon. Friend’s area.