VAT: Independent Schools

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow so many excellent maiden speeches today. I am glad to have this opportunity to talk about schools and education because there is no doubt that schools face very real funding constraints. In my constituency, there are state schools that have been forced to let staff go because the funding just is not there. The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculates that, after school-specific inflation has been deducted, per-pupil funding rose by 0.7% in primary schools over the last 14 years and that spending shrank by 0.5% in secondaries. That compares to real increases of between 5% and 6% over the preceding 13 years.

Figures released in response to a written parliamentary question show that over the last five years, per-pupil funding in Birmingham grew less fast than in the west midlands and across England as a whole. In fact, while per-pupil spending will have risen by just under 21% between 2020-21 and 2024-25, CPI inflation will have increased by about 24.5%. In other words, this is a real-terms cut of around 3%, or a loss of around £179 for each child. Some of the schools in my constituency have some of the highest pupil premium rates in the country. These are not just statistics; they represent a loss of opportunity, a loss of skilled and dedicated staff, and the overcrowded classrooms that flow from that.

At this point I draw the House’s attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my background as an officer of the GMB, one of the unions that represents school support staff.

There is much for schools and parents to welcome in this Government’s approach, including ending single-word inspection judgments, funding free breakfast clubs, reusing space from falling pupil numbers to create new early-years provision, committing to a new child poverty reduction strategy—the first since the Child Poverty Act 2010 was repealed—and reinstating the school support staff negotiating body. It has been welcome in this debate to hear the concern for school support staff roles in the independent sector. I am sure that will extend to the state sector and I hope that we will see cross-party support for that measure.

I want to make a point around SEND. The motion would exempt all children on SEND support from the VAT policy, but SEND support status is determined within schools, and schools in the independent sector do not have the same budgetary restrictions as state schools, which are obliged to set aside nominal SEND budgets. There is a real risk of creating false incentives, as the “Today” programme’s 2017 investigation demonstrated. Ours is the right policy, and this is the wrong motion. I look forward to voting against it later today.

Winter Fuel Payment

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

I associate myself with the comments of Labour colleagues in this debate, but I want to speak about the particular issue of public sector pay and the attempts made in this debate and the preceding one to turn pensioners and public sector workers against each other, including the public sector workers who have been driven to rely on food banks and payday loans, who I was proud to represent as a trade union official. The 6,000 public sector workers in my constituency must wonder what the Opposition have against them in this debate.

A strong economy needs strong public services, but the problem for the last Government—and the public sector workers who worked for them—was that their public finance strategy rested on

“imposing the biggest real wage cuts in living memory.”

Those are not my words but those of the former permanent secretary to the Treasury, Nicholas Macpherson. The consequences for the services that we all depend on are clear: teaching vacancies have doubled over the past three years, there is an 8% vacancy rate in the NHS and one in 10 999 call handler posts is vacant. We all know the consequences of ambulance delays for pensioners and of cancelled operations and appointments. [Interruption.] Does the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) wish to make an intervention?

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Thank you, that is kind. In Basildon and Billericay, 15,000 pensioners will lose out because of this callous cut by the Labour Government. The hon. Member pointed out the impact on public services, but how many more hospital admissions will we have, and how many more people will need operations because of his party’s cut? Will we be unable to find out, because his party will not even put forward an impact assessment so that we can know who is affected?

[Laurence Turner]

We will take no lectures on hospital admissions, given the state of the NHS that the right hon. Member’s party left us.

The Conservatives claimed that they did not know what the pay review body recommendations would be, but the School Teachers’ Review Body recommendations were known to Ministers before July. They will know also that the different PRBs tend to make similar recommendations. Why were most of those recommendations not submitted in good time? Because Ministers were late in submitting their evidence, pushing the timetable until after the election. The Office of Manpower Economics has said:

“The work of the PRBs is demand led and essentially non-negotiable—departments set the remits and timetables.”

Shadow Ministers talked about productivity gains, but when it came to NHS negotiations under the last Government, productivity was just a slogan. The cupboard was bare. They had nothing to actually ask for.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman is making a case comparing the salaries of working individuals with the pensions of the elderly. Could he tell me how many of the people who will lose the winter fuel allowance in his constituency earn or receive less than the minimum wage?

[Laurence Turner]

In my constituency, there are approximately 2,600 pensioner households that do not receive pension credit—that is one of the legacies of the previous Government—but are entitled to it.

The Conservatives suggest that they would have rejected the pay review body recommendations, forgetting that one of the first acts of the Margaret Thatcher Government in 1979 was to accept the recommendations of the Clegg commission on pay comparability. If only the Conservative party had more courage today.

The winter fuel allowance exists because of a Labour Government: a Government who increased the value of those payments fivefold in 13 years, compared with an increase of zero under 14 years of the previous Government—a real-terms cut of 33%.

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

It is fascinating to hear the recent converts to the fight against poverty on the Opposition Benches, particularly the right hon. Member for North West Durham—sorry, Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden)—yet they seem far quieter about the fact that the average food shop went up by £1,000 in the last Parliament, the average energy bill went up £400—[Interruption.] Listen and you might learn something. The average mortgage went up £2,880 because of your lot. [Interruption.] Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

As the hon. Member will know, it is for individual Members to declare their interests, if one is applicable.

[Laurence Turner]

I declared my background in the trade union movement, and I note that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) wrote the manifesto, which he stood on, that proposed cutting the winter fuel allowance.

Now that the winter fuel allowance is to be means-tested, we must boost the uptake of pension credit. I welcome the measures Ministers have announced today, so that the allowance can be protected for the very poorest pensioners.