of Darlington
(Lab): My Lords, 98% of the 630 head teachers surveyed by
the Association of
School and College Leaders said they would have to
make savings to meet the rocketing costs of energy, food and
school supplies. Two-thirds of them believe they will have to cut
support staff and 17 are having to consider closing for a day a
week, with a devastating impact on families and children. Does
the Minister not find it astonishing that, despite several
suggestions of ways to provide funding that would keep schools
open, such as making private schools help shoulder the costs,
abolishing non-dom status or a windfall tax on the energy
companies, Ministers refuse even to consider these options when
our schools face such pressures right now?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con): As I said in
my opening response, the department is absolutely committed to
supporting schools. We have worked through our school resource
management teams and saved more than £1 billion so far, and our
School Resource Management strategy sets out work with schools to
save another £1 billion. In the school sector we see pressure on
all schools—I do not dispute that for a second—but some schools
are finding it easier than others. We need to work to understand
how we can share that best practice across the whole sector.
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