Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

On the condition of school buildings, the hon. Lady will know that there is £1.8 billion-worth of capital for maintaining and improving school buildings. On the broader questions about school funding, she might have been alluding—I am looking for some visual recognition—to figures put together by the National Education Union. If so, I have to tell her that we believe those figures to be flawed in multiple respects, including in assumptions they make about the money and the number of children in schools in previous years. I hope she will join me in celebrating the record resourcing rightly going in to educating children.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I welcome the record real-terms funding flowing into our schools, but will my right hon. Friend join me in looking very carefully at the case for extending funding for tutoring? It has raised attainment, in particular for the most disadvantaged, in many of our schools, and been seen as a great success story. When it was introduced, it was intended to be a long-term intervention. May I urge the Minister to continue to look at that and ensure we find money, in addition to the pupil premium, to support that noble aim?

[Damian Hinds]

I absolutely agree that tutoring is important in multiple contexts. In particular, in the years since the pandemic it has played an essential part. I will add that tutoring by undergraduates can help to introduce a wider range of people to the potential of a career in teaching. I want tutoring to continue. As my hon. Friend rightly mentions, part of the function of the pupil premium is to make such interventions and it can be spent on them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gillian Keegan]

There would be no childcare on the table if the Labour party were in charge, so I urge all working parents to support the Conservative party, which has a plan for them. Like everything we do, the £500 million will be fully funded. It secures the rates in the future so that businesses up and down the country have the confidence to invest. The Labour party has absolutely no plan for childcare and for supporting working parents in this country.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

T4. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has rightly championed childcare and early education. I congratulate her on the £500 million in this year’s Budget, on top of the billions committed last year to the sector—

[Bridget Phillipson]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Walker]

It is in the Red Book. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to show her where it is.

I urge the Secretary of State to keep pressing on some of the Education Committee’s other recommendations, including on extending family hubs, removing rates and VAT from childcare providers, and reforming tax-free childcare to drive take-up.

[Gillian Keegan]

This Conservative Government are backing this country’s brilliant childcare providers as we roll out our historic childcare offer. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, that is on top of the roll-out of universal services in family hubs. To give certainty to the early years sector, we have confirmed that average funding rates will increase over the next two financial years—as he stated, the details are in the Red Book—giving them the confidence to invest and expand. Only the Conservatives have a plan for hard-working parents.