New analysis by Labour of data from the IFS Green Budget
2018 shows that capital expenditure in education will have fallen
by 41.2% between 2010/11 and 2018-19. In 2010/11 capital spending
was £8.8 billion, but this has fallen to £5.2 billion in
2018-19.
The research was carried out by Labour ahead of next
Monday’s Budget.
Labour is demanding that Chancellor acknowledges the scale of
the hardship eight years of Tory austerity has inflicted and to
deliver a Budget to end austerity. To end austerity in education,
Labour is calling for:
- A stop to further cuts to per pupil funding for
schools. The Chancellor needs to find more than £1 billion
in the next year alone, including £250 million to meet his own
Party’s commitments on teachers’ pay.
- A further £1.7bn is needed in 2019-20 to reverse
cuts since 2015.
- More than £3bn to reverse the cuts to further and
adult education since 2010, and more than £1bn to reverse the
cuts to Sure Start.
MP, Labour’s Shadow
Education Secretary, said:
“It’s shameful that the Tories have cut billions of pounds
of investment from the school infrastructure budget, despite
knowing that the majority of our schools are in urgent need of
repair.
“It is simply not acceptable that thousands of our children
are learning in schools and classrooms that are leaking and
crumbling around them.
“To end austerity in education, the Government must stop
any further cuts to funding for our schools and cough up the
money to reverse the huge cuts it
has already made to schools, adult and further education and
Sure Start.”
Ends
Notes to editors
· Labour
analysis of data from the IFS Green Budget 2018, shows that
capital expenditure in education will have fallen in real terms
by 41.2% between 2010/11 and 2018-19.
|
Real £ billion (2018-19
prices)
|
DfE Capital budget
|
|
2010/11
|
8.8
|
|
2018/19
|
5.2
|
· IFS,
Green Budget: October 2018, Chapter 4https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/13507
· The
Department for Education estimates that there are 62 million
square metres of internal floor space in England’s 21,200
state-funded schools, an area equivalent to approximately 9,600
football pitches.
NAO, Capital Funding for Schools https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Capital-funding-for-schools.pdf
· Much
of the school estate is more than 40 years old, with an
estimated 60% built before 1976.
NAO, Capital Funding for Schools https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Capital-funding-for-schools.pdf
· In
July, the BBC reported on a school that had over 300 holes in its
roof.
"It's really heartbreaking," said Mr Ludlow, head of
the Wolverhampton school, standing beside a bucket for collecting
rain in a corridor.
"When it rains, and we've had some heavy downpours,
water comes through into the corridors and brings bits of the
ceiling down," he says.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44456241
· The
Department for Education expects the condition of schools to
worsen over the coming years.
“The Department expects the condition of the school
estate will worsen as it cannot fund all the maintenance and
improvement work required.”
NAO, Capital Funding for Schools, pg
38 https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Capital-funding-for-schools.pdf
· According
to the NEU, more than 200 teachers have died across the country
since 2001 from mesothelioma, a form of cancer associated with
asbestos.
Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos fibres and
the disease typically develops more than 20 years later.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-45355886
· The
Department for Education does not know how many schools are
affected by asbestos.
“Individual schools are responsible for maintaining a
record of asbestos and the Department does not collate
information on the number of school buildings
affected.”
NAO, Capital Funding for Schools, pg
33 https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Capital-funding-for-schools.pdf
