Schools ‘begging for donations’, says Labour

But Hinds announces £1.4 billion for school buildings in 2019-20
13th November 2018, 6:00pm

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Schools ‘begging for donations’, says Labour

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Schools are being forced to “beg for donations” and are slashing subjects in a bid to save cash despite the prime minister’s pledge to end austerity, MPs have heard.

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner told ministers that despite budget promises of extra funding, “austerity isn’t over for our children”.

But speaking in a Labour debate about school funding this afternoon, education secretary Damian Hinds said: “I can confirm today that the government will also spend £1.4 billion on condition allocations in 2019-20 and schools can now apply for the first tranche of this funding.”

This would match the level of condition allocations in 2018-19.

Labour used the debate to call on the government to reverse all the cuts to education funding since 2010.

Ms Rayner said that the chancellor’s £400 million capital bonus for schools to buy “little extras” was “incredible”, adding that the education secretary Damian Hinds “urgently” needed to demand more cash.

She said: “He’s taken billions of pounds from our schools and now he offers them a whiteboard.

“What use is a whiteboard without a teacher to use it?

“No doubt if we did face Brexit food shortages, his solution would be: Let them eat cake.”

She added: “I’ve heard the heartbreaking stories for myself too many times, schools begging for donations, vital support staff lost, children with special educational needs and disability suffering the most, the school week being cut, subjects dropped with those like sports and arts first to go.

“Austerity isn’t over for schools.”

Ms Rayner told MPs that Labour would fund extra education spending through corporation tax.

She said: “At the general election we had costings within our manifesto - the Conservative Party made no costings and said nothing about the bung they were giving the DUP to prop up their government.

“We would reverse the big corporation tax cuts that were given away by the Conservatives, we said that, we fully costed it, and 95 per cent of UK taxpayers would not pay a penny more but those at the top would pay a little bit extra.”

Mr Hinds renewed his attack on Labour’s policy to “bring all publicly funded schools back into the mainstream public sector, with a common rulebook and under local democratic control”.

He said: “The party opposite want to scrap academies and free schools, putting ideology before education, trusting politicians over teachers.”

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