Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Mulholland and David Laws

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Local authorities do have that knowledge of local need, and they have the money from us to address this issue.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I recently attended a meeting with all the head teachers from the Otley family of schools, which covers Otley, Bramhope, Pool-in-Wharfedale and Adur, and they expressed concern about the chronic shortage of school places at primary level. After the debacle of Labour-run Leeds city council closing schools a number of years ago, and now that we need some, what work is going on to have discussions with the Department for Communities and Local Government about how this problem can be avoided in future?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. One of the reasons there are pressures in some parts of the country is that under the previous Government over 200,000 primary school places were eliminated after 2003. He will be aware that Leeds is one of the areas to which we have given significant amounts of basic need funding, and it is now using that money effectively. I will be happy to meet him if it would be helpful to discuss this in further detail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Mulholland and David Laws

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I will confirm precisely that. Not only have we allocated £5 billion over this Parliament, more than double the amount that the Labour party allocated over the same period, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has succeeded in securing from the Treasury £7.1 billion of capital funding for basic need alone from 2015 to 2021.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

In 2001-02, Labour-run Leeds city council forced through a raft of unpopular primary school closures against the wishes of the community. Now, Labour-run Leeds city council is saying that it does not have enough places and that it needs to spend lots of taxpayers’ money building more schools. How can we prevent such appalling planning in the future?

[Mr Laws]

Now we have evidence from the ground, from Leeds, about the exact consequences of the last Labour Government and the mistake that they made by not investing properly in capital. However, I can assure my hon. Friend that the figures for Leeds are these: under the last Labour Government, £15 million over four years for basic need; under this coalition Government, £99.2 million, an increase of 560%.