Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that schools should be free to be run as best suits them. We are putting autonomy and freedom in the hands of strong leaders and outstanding teachers so that they can deliver an excellent education. We want to get out of the way of outstanding education providers so that they can set up the types of schools that parents want. That is why we have set out our new plans to remove the ban on new grammar schools and restrictions on new faith schools. It is a complex area, but we expect to announce the detail of the next wave of free school applications following the publication of our schools White Paper.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I want to begin by paying tribute, as the Prime Minister did, to the emergency services across the country, and especially to all those who responded to the Westminster attack last Wednesday and those who turned out to help the victims of the New Ferry explosion last Saturday. Our thoughts remain with the injured and those who have lost loved ones, and we especially thank the police for their ongoing investigations. Will the Prime Minister assure us that the police will be given all the necessary support and resources to take them through this very difficult period of investigating what happened last Wednesday?

[The Prime Minister]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in praising the work of our emergency services, who, as he has pointed out, have to deal with a wide range of incidents. Our focus in the House has most recently been on the attack that took place last Wednesday, but we should never forget that, day in and day out, our emergency services are working on our behalf and often putting themselves in danger as a result of the work that they do.

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have, of course, been keeping in touch with both the security services and the Metropolitan police—as has my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—about the current investigation of the attack last week, and about future security arrangements. I can also assure him that they have the resources that they need in order to carry out their vital work.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Of course we all pay tribute to the police for the work that they do, but there are some problems. Between 2015 and 2018 there will be a real-terms cut of £330 million in central Government funding for police forces. Can the Prime Minister assure the House that police forces all over the country have the necessary resources with which to do the job?

[The Prime Minister]

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we have protected the police budget in the comprehensive spending review. I also remind him that the former shadow Home Secretary, his colleague the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), said during the 2015 Labour party conference that

“savings can be found. The Police say 5% to 10% over the Parliament is just about do-able.”

We did not accept that. We have actually protected the police budget. I have been speaking to police forces, as has my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and they are very clear about the fact that they have the resources that they need for the work that they are doing.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

A survey undertaken recently by the Police Federation reveals that 55% of serving police officers say that their morale is low because of how their funding has been treated. Frontline policing is vital to tackling crime and terrorism, but there are 20,000 fewer police officers and 12,000 fewer officers on the frontline than there were in 2010. I ask the Prime Minister again: will she think again about the cuts in policing, and will she guarantee that policing on the frontline will be protected so that every community can be assured that it has the police officers it needs?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said to the right hon. Gentleman, we have protected police budgets, including the precept that the police are able to raise locally. But let us just think about what has happened since 2010. Since then, crimes that are traditionally measured by the independent crime survey have fallen by a third, to a record low. That is due to the work of hard-working police officers up and down the country, and they have been backed by this Government. Yes, we have made them more accountable through directly elected police and crime commissioners, and yes, there has been reform of policing—including reform of the Police Federation, which was very necessary—but we have ensured that they have the resources to do their job, and we now see crime at a record low.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s welcome for the extra money—the £2 billion that was announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget—that is going into social care. That shows that we have recognised the pressures and demands on social care, but it is also important that we ensure that best practice is delivered across the whole country. It is not just about money, so we are also trying to find a long-term, sustainable solution that will help local authorities to learn from each other to raise standards across the whole system. We will bring forward proposals in a Green Paper later this year to put the state-funded system on a more secure and sustainable footing.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

As Home Secretary, the Prime Minister clearly did not protect police budgets. Last week, she told me four times:

“We have protected the schools budget.”—[Official Report, 22 March 2017; Vol. 623, c. 854-855.]

Does she still stand by that statement?

[The Prime Minister]

We have protected schools’ budgets, and we are putting record funding into schools.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Today, the Public Accounts Committee says of the Department for Education:

“The Department does not seem to understand the pressures that schools are already under.”

It goes on to say that

“Funding per pupil is reducing in real terms”,

and that school budgets will be cut by £3 billion—equivalent to 8%—by 2020. Is the Public Accounts Committee wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

What we will see over the course of this Parliament is £230 billion going into our schools, but what matters is the quality of education in schools. An additional 1.8 million children are in good or outstanding schools, and this Government’s policy is to ensure that every child gets a good school place.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The daily experience of many parents who have children in school is that they receive letters asking for money. One parent, Elizabeth, wrote to me to say that she has received a letter from her daughter’s school asking for a monthly donation to top up the reduced funds that it is receiving. This Government’s cuts to schools are betraying a generation of our children. If the Prime Minister is right, the parents are wrong, the teachers are wrong, the Institute for Fiscal Studies is wrong, the National Audit Office is wrong, and the Education Policy Institute is wrong. Now the Public Accounts Committee, which includes eight Conservative Members, is also wrong. Which organisation does back the Prime Minister’s view on education spending in our schools?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have just said to the right hon. Gentleman, we said that we would protect school funding, and we have; there is a real-terms protection for the schools budget. We said that we would protect the money following children into schools, and we have; the schools budget reaches £42 billion, as pupil numbers rise, in 2019-20. But I also have to say to him that it is about the quality of education that children are receiving, with 1.8 million more children in good or outstanding schools than there were under the Labour Government.

Time and again, the right hon. Gentleman stands up at Prime Minister’s questions and asks questions that would lead to more spending. Let us look at what he has said recently: on 11 January, more spending; on 8 February, more spending; on 22 February, more spending; on 1 and 8 March, more spending; and on 15 and 22 March, more spending. Barely a PMQs goes by that he does not call for more public spending. When it comes to spending money that it does not have, Labour simply cannot help itself. It is the same old Labour: spend today and give somebody else the bill tomorrow. Well, we will not do that to the next generation.