Damian Hinds
Main Page: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)Department Debates - View all Damian Hinds's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
It is important to bear in mind that the Building Schools for the Future programme was not the most effective way of allocating resources to local authority schools. We have increased provision for additional school places in Coventry, compared with the last Government: they spent £25 million and we are spending £41 million. Coventry is also the area that has benefited fastest from our new Priority School Building programme. Whitmore Park primary school was one of the first to open, just a couple of weeks ago, and there are other schools in Coventry in desperate need of maintenance money which we are now helping at a lower cost and faster than under Building Schools for the Future.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Was not the real vanity project the Building Schools for the Future programme that my right hon. Friend has just alluded to, which was hugely costly? Are not this Government now picking up the pieces of the last Government’s unbelievable lack of planning at primary level, and in a way that guarantees quality, diversity and choice to parents?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Again, it is important that the House recall that under the last Government the provision of primary school places was cut, and under this Government it has expanded. At the same time as increasing the quantity of school places, we have raised the quality.