Teacher Vacancies

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

First, I do not recognise the numbers that the noble Baroness cites. In 2022-23 there were 47,954 entrants to the profession and 43,997 left the profession. I am definitely not a maths teacher, but that does not look to me like more people left than started. On a payment for every early-career teacher, the Government believe that it is a much better use of taxpayers’ money to target that funding to teachers in those areas and for those subjects where it is hardest to recruit. I would be interested to know how the noble Baroness would feel if she were a physics teacher being offered up to £3,000 a year for five years tax-free as opposed to £2,400 for two years, which I think is the noble Baroness’s commitment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, 40,000 teachers left the teaching profession last year—the highest since we started recording the number. There are 2,300 empty posts and 3,300 posts are filled by supply teachers. We have heard that 23% of specialist maths teachers and 42% of physics teachers are required. How do parents feel about this situation when their children are, in some cases, being taught not by a specialist teacher but by a supply teacher—a person not qualified in that subject area? Is this not a crisis, and should we not be doing something about it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I talk to a lot of schools and trusts, and I absolutely accept that there are particular areas and subjects where recruitment feels really hard at the moment. But I do not accept that this is the highest figure of leavers ever—I have the numbers in front of me. The trend over the past 10 years is pretty stable. It is only fair to look at the facts and to use the facts. I think that most parents feel that teachers go above and beyond to give their children a great education. The work that we have done to improve the curriculum over the past 10 years is a really important part of that.