Baroness Coussins
Main Page: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Coussins's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. What I have learned from this episode is not to listen to scare stories from the party opposite. She talks about school closures; I am sorry that she did not listen to the figures that I gave. Yes, 49 private schools have closed but 70 private schools have opened, so obviously there is a net increase in the number of private schools in our country. There has historically been a significant turnover in this sector, with around 75 private schools in the UK opening and closing each year and the overall number of private schools remaining broadly stable.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, will His Majesty’s Government consider using some of the money that they expect to get from this policy to reverse their recent decision to remove funding from state schools for the international baccalaureate?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I do not know about the specific policy that the noble Baroness is talking about but, as I say, we significantly increased per-pupil funding in the previous spending review to a new record high within our state schools.