Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Watts's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I do not know about specific decisions that each individual school is making. Obviously, how individual schools fund a specific policy is a matter for them, but I am very confident that our free school meals policy is fully funded.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, has the Minister noticed that when this was announced the Opposition claimed that it would shut schools, yet it has not? They are switching their arguments on a daily basis. Does he also agree with me that this is hard to take from a party which cut state school spending virtually every year that it was in power?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for the points that he makes, and I agree very much with what he is saying. As he knows, we are increasing per-pupil funding to record amounts. It is absolutely correct that we have heard many scare stories about this policy—that schools would close. Since VAT was applied on 1 January, private schools have continued to open and close in line with historic trends. As I have said already, 49 private schools have closed but 70 private schools have so far opened.