Further Investment to Build Schools for the Future
Nick on a visit last year to Benfield, one of many schools in Newcastle to benefit from Labour's BSF funding
In September, Nick went to Walker Technology College to see their new Cadet Centre. Walker Tech was one of only six schools across the country to be awarded the scheme two years ago, and, together with the Walker Councillors, Nick fought hard to get the original funding for it. That’s not the only way the school has benefited from recent increases in Government spending.
This week the Children’s Department announced a further £1bn for extra school places and new school buildings through Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme. Together with Benfield School, West Jesmond Primary, and many other schools across Newcastle, Walker Tech has benefited from the biggest sustained period of school building for decades.
In total, the £22bn allocated through Building Schools for the Future across the country means that more money is being spent rebuilding schools in the current three years than during the entire eighteen years of the last Conservative Government.
As part of moves to boost the economy and increase spending on construction back in March, the Government offered councils the chance to bring forward the schools rebuilding money. In common with Lib Dem run authorities across the country, Newcastle City Council refused. If the Council had got their act together then this year’s school upgrades in Newcastle could have come even earlier.
David Cameron’s Tories have already promised to slash £4bn of the BSF budget if they were to form the next Government. The Conservative approach is echoed by the right wing Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg who has called for “savage cuts”. The Lib Dems won’t guarantee schools funding, or anything else, saying only that “everything should be justified from first principles” and that “they’ve all got to be looked at”. That means everything from the Winter Fuel Payment to nurses wages is under threat.
In difficult economic times, the right thing to do is to invest in our schools, and continue to build for the future. Labour is the only party which will offer that choice.