Chancellor announces funding for crumbling schools and childcare ahead of next week's budget
Rachel Reeves has announced £1.4 billion to rebuild crumbling schools and a tripling of investment to provide free breakfast clubs and child care as part of her first budget.
On Sunday the Chancellor said children "should not suffer for" the dire state of the UK’s public finances despite the Labour government's need to fill a £22 billion "black hole" in overspend.
"This Government’s first Budget will set out how we will fix the foundations of the country," Ms Reeves said.
"It will mean tough decisions, but also the start of a new chapter for Britain, by growing our economy through investing in our future to rebuild our schools, hospitals and broken roads.
"Protecting funding for education was one of the things I wanted to do first because our children are the future of this country. We might have inherited a mess, but they should not suffer for it."
How will the Chancellor's investment be used?
Rebuilding schools
The Treasury said the £1.4 billion would "ensure the delivery" of the school rebuilding programme previously announced in 2020 with the aim of rebuilding and refurbishing 500 schools in the next 10 years.
The announcement comes after more than 100 schools, nurseries and colleges in England were forced to shut down last year after concerns that classrooms and other buildings containing reinforced autoclaved concrete (Raac) were unsafe.
However, economists warned that most of the funding would only be enough to keep the current scheme going.
The construction project aims to complete around 50 schools a year but last year the government predicted it would complete fewer projects than initially planned, according to the National Audit Office.
The £1.4 billion is understood to be a £550 million increase on last year to support the programme.
Free breakfast clubs
The Chancellor would commit to tripling its investment in free breakfast clubs to £30 million in 2025-26.
It comes after announcing a £7 million trial across up to 750 schools starting in April next year at the Labour party conference in September.
Labour’s manifesto committed to spending £315 million on breakfast clubs by 2028–29.
Government-funded child care
The Treasury also confirmed £1.8 billion would be allocated for the expansion of Government-funded childcare, with a further £15 million of funding for school-based nurseries.
Primary schools will be able to apply for £150,000 of the £15 million, with the first stage of the plan expected to support up to 300 new or expanded nurseries across England, it said.
Kinship and foster care
£44 million has been pledged to help kinship and foster carers.
It will include a new kinship allowance which will be trialed across 10 local authorities to test whether offering financial support can increase the number of children being taken in by family and friends.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the funding would help “put education back at the forefront of national life”.
“This is a Budget about fixing the foundations of the country, so there can be no better place to start than the life chances of our children and young people,” she said.
“Our inheritance may be dire, but I will never accept that any child should learn in a crumbling classroom.”
However, Institute for Fiscal Studies researcher Christine Farquharson said that “in a tight fiscal context” the commitments “largely reflect decisions to continue programmes.”
She said: “Putting £1.4 billion into the school rebuilding programme next year will be enough to keep what was always intended as a 10-year programme going in its sixth year.
“£1.8 billion for the rollout of new childcare entitlements similarly confirms plans set out under the previous government.
“Bumping up the breakfast club budget to £30 million does seem to be a boost on the previously-announced £7 million – but this is still only a tenth of what the Labour manifesto plans to spend by 2028-29, so the bulk of the rollout lies ahead.”
School leaders have also warned that's the funding announcement left a "significant shortfall" in what is needed to restore the school estate to satisfactory levels.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers union, said the investment is "helpful" but urged the government to commit to a "major school rebuilding programme" in its spring review.
“It is reassuring to hear that school funding will be protected next year and that education will continue to be prioritised as schools face continuing financial pressures," he said.
“It is now important that the Government is very clear about what it means by ‘protected’.
“We urge the Government to use the reduction in pupil numbers some schools are facing to increase per pupil funding both in the short and longer term.”
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In her first budget next week, Ms Reeves plans to announce a change to the UK’s debt rule which will allow for the Government to spend billions more on long-term infrastructure, such as replacing dilapidated buildings on the public sector estate.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “In government, the Conservatives had a relentless focus on giving every child the best start in life.
“We launched the largest ever expansion of childcare, recruited 27,000 teachers and drove up school standards.
“On the other hand, Labour are breaking their promises to the public.
“Just like their broken promises on hiking taxes and fiddling the fiscal rules, they’ve broken their promises to students – introducing a new tax on education and plotting the cancellation of dozens of new schools projects.”
You can watch ITV News' special Budget Day coverage on October 30 on ITV1 and ITVX.
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