Ministers have been accused by peers of offering only “a fig leaf” on education and having no plan for dealing with the school funding squeeze.

Speaking in the House of Lords debate on the government’s legislative programme, the Liberal Democrat peer and former headteacher Lord Storey said there was “just one fig leaf paragraph in the Queen’s Speech on education which reveals neither imagination nor competence”.

He argued that it failed to address the critical issue of school funding.

The peer said: “In spite of an accentuated consultation period, the fair funding about which the government has made such great claims has turned out to be unfairer funding, with schools having to reduce teaching staff, reduce non-teaching staff, cut subjects from the secondary curriculum and ask parents to pay for the free state education we used to be so proud of.”

He said the average primary school stood to lose £74,000 in real terms over the next four years, the equivalent of two teachers; while the average secondary school faced losing £291,000, which equated to six teachers.

Lord Storey said: “If we really want to give our children the best possible start in life, we can’t let the government stretch our schools to breaking point.

“The government talks a lot about the world-class education system. A Rolls-Royce cannot be made without top-class materials, state-of-the-art machine tools and high-quality technicians.

“Our schools need sufficient resources, state-of-the-art facilities and, above all, high-quality teachers.”

‘Unprecedented crisis’

He was joined in his criticism by Labour spokesman Baroness Sherlock, who argued that the Conservatives had aspirations for education but no plan on how to achieve them, given the “unprecedented funding crises in our schools”.

Lady Sherlock said: “There is no vision for education in the Queen’s Speech. No commitment to ensure schools are fully and properly funded, no strategy to deal with the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, no plan to help the half-million children being taught in classes of over 30.

“There are aspirations. The government wants to ‘make sure all children get a world-class education’ and ‘for every child to go to a good or outstanding school’. Excellent, but how will that be achieved when we have unprecedented funding crises in our schools.”

The Bishop of Ely, the Rt Rev Stephen Conway, raised concerns over the increasing number of schools not offering religious education as a subject.

He said: “The answer to perverted theology in any faith is not to ignore the theology but to encourage good theology in response to combat the bad.

“Religious literacy is more important than ever and all children should be offered the opportunity to explore and understand faith.”

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