Budget Resolutions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow). I am afraid that this Budget will make little positive difference to his constituents or mine, or to the country at large. The cuts in national insurance announced today will not compensate for the interest rate rises my constituents have had to suffer, or for the plans announced by Conservatives in Harrow Council to push up council tax by some 16% in the coming years. The OBR confirmed today that living standards will stay below those of 2019 for at least another two years, meaning less money in my constituents’ pockets, in family budgets, and for our high streets.

The Budget will do little to reverse the sustained under-investment in public services in Harrow or across the country. Every school in my constituency now has less funding in real terms than in 2010. On average, schools in my constituency have seen a reduction in real terms since 2010 of almost £900 per pupil. In real terms, more than £12 million has been cut from school budgets since 2010 in Harrow West. The four high schools in my constituency have been hit particularly hard, seeing real-terms funding cuts of between £900 and almost £1,900 per pupil, and the primary schools have seen cuts in their spending power of between £200,000 and almost £600,000, compared with 2010. The excellent Pinner Park Primary School, which I was lucky enough to attend, has seen a real-terms cut per pupil of £880 since 2010, and a loss of almost £740,000 in spending power.

Many schools in my constituency, and indeed across the country, face huge problems recruiting and retaining teachers and other staff. In my constituency that is due in no small part to London’s housing crisis. I have always wanted to see the inner London allowance for teachers extended to outer London, to help deal with the recruitment crisis in my constituency and other parts of outer London. There was nothing in the Budget to deliver the level of investment that schools in my constituency deserve.

On special needs funding, although I welcome the small announcement that the Chancellor made today, Ministers still do not appear to have grasped the scale of need. In Harrow, which has traditionally been poorly supported by Conservatives—and whose problems have now been exacerbated by a poor Conservative Administration—just 29% of education, health and care plans were issued to support young people with significant special educational needs within 20 weeks, which is lower than rates in Barnet, Hillingdon and Brent.

Conservatives Ministers have three times rejected bids for funding from Harrow Council for another urgently needed special needs school, for 290 extra places. That shortage of locally provided, appropriate special educational needs and disabilities places is forcing the use of expensive private school places, causing transport costs to rocket and causing parents of SEND children the ever-present worry that their child’s place will be taken away, or that they will have to settle for a placement that is not fully appropriate. It is also placing heavier pressures on mainstream schools, which are not getting sufficient extra funding to ensure that some of their SEND pupils are properly supported.

Parents of children with special educational needs are telling me that the council locally—I know that this is mirrored nationally—does not have the resources or staff to complete those education, health and care plans in good time. The parents of one young person in my constituency, awaiting a second occupational therapy assessment in order to complete an EHCP that was started in June last year, have just received a letter to say that OT assessments will be delayed again because the service is running at a reduced level.

Support for children with special educational needs is in crisis, and this Budget is not offering the investment necessary to bring new hope to the thousands of families who have been let down by the Government’s failure to invest over the past decade in Britain’s next generation.

The NHS in Harrow is on its knees. Nationally, one in every seven people in England is on an NHS waiting list, which is more than ever before. That means they are putting their lives on hold, having to manage in pain and discomfort for months. For far too long, trying to get an appointment to see a GP in Harrow has been a struggle for too many people.

In a sign of the scale of the crisis in access to primary care, I understand that a new system for urgent GP appointments is being forced on all GP surgeries across north-west London. No consultation on that plan has happened up until now and independent medical advice suggests serious concerns about patient safety flowing from it. It would have been far better had the underfunding of the NHS not led to the closures of 8 am to 8 pm walk-in urgent care centres in my constituency. They eased the pressure on GP surgeries and, crucially, on accident and emergency services.

One major NHS reform that would make an immediate difference locally is for an investment in a 50% expansion in intensive care beds at Northwick Park Hospital, which serves my constituency—from a 24-bed unit at the moment to 36 beds. That would help to ease the huge daily pressure on A&E in what is the busiest hospital in London for blue-light ambulance visits. I make no criticism of the staff there; they are doing an impressive job. Sadly, though, this is a Budget that will see further cuts in the support available from the NHS, and a lack of investment in our schools, too. I hope that, even at this late stage, Ministers will find a way to begin to put that damage right.