Education Funding

Debate between Michael Gove and Austin Mitchell

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am afraid that County Durham is one of the local authorities that has not reached financial close, but I would encourage all schools that believe that they can make use of academy freedoms to move down that route. We are, of course, encouraging sponsors, with whom we have been in negotiation, to do everything possible not just to transform teaching and learning, but to improve the environment in which children learn.

[Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that, whatever his criticisms of the Building Schools for the Future programme, some of which were justified, his announcement today will cast a pall of gloom and uncertainty over areas such as mine, which have yet to benefit from it? Does he also agree that in north-east Lincolnshire, we have particular problems in that we desperately need the new school building as a stimulus to the system and we desperately need the jobs and economic stimulus that that building will bring? It is also an area of high unemployment and under-privilege, which suffers from under-attainment in educational standards. Should not the particular needs of an area such as that be taken into account before deciding to cancel any part of our programme?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points about the defects in the Building Schools for the Future programme, which shows him being typically bipartisan and capable of rising above party divisions in order to acknowledge such flaws. I also appreciate that in his constituency a fantastic school, Havelock academy, is unaffected by today’s proposal. However, I am afraid that because two schools in his constituency have not reached financial close, they will not receive the investment that he might have hoped for. I appreciate that in Great Grimsby there are problems with educational attainment, and I look forward to working with him to do everything that we can to raise attainment in that constituency.