Educational Capacity

1. What steps she is taking to increase the level of educational capacity in areas of increasing population.

My Department is providing local authorities with £2.5 billion of capital funding to create mainstream school places. We encourage them to work with planning authorities and housing developers as we build 1.5 million homes to help families on to the housing ladder and to drive growth. Where school roll numbers are falling, we are making use of the extra space by opening Best Start school-based nurseries and special educational needs and disability inclusion bases.

Telford is the third fastest growing town in the UK. The Government are investing in my town, and the Secretary of State saw the fruits of that investment during a recent visit. However, teachers and educational staff need us to go further by investing in new school places, bringing a new university campus to the heart of Telford and narrowing the attainment gap of children with SEND and on free school meals. What more will the Government do to invest in fast-growing places such as Telford, and will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss unlocking Telford’s potential?

My hon. Friend is a real champion for children and young people in Telford, as I saw when we had a tour of the town, including of the local school-based nursery, of brilliant schools such as the new Thomas Telford primary free school, and of the great further and higher education options. Labour is backing my hon. Friend’s ambition for Telford’s children through accessible and affordable childcare, schools at which every child can achieve and thrive, and the new free breakfast clubs that he opened just last week.

My constituency has a large and growing Jewish population, but because of Labour’s VAT hike, Immanuel college, a Jewish school in my constituency, announced last week that it was closing. At a time of rising antisemitism, and deep fear among the Jewish community, access to a Jewish education is more important than ever, but that announcement risks depriving many Jewish students in my constituency and the wider area of access to one. What assurances can the Secretary of State give those children and their parents about access to such an education, particularly when local Jewish state schools are enormously oversubscribed?

I completely agree that there can be no place for antisemitism in our school and colleges, or indeed anywhere in our society. That is why I have asked Sir David Bell to lead an independent review to look at what more we need to do to root out antisemitism from our schools and colleges. I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to share any thoughts with Sir David as he takes forward that important work.

On the school that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, I encourage him and the school to work together with the local authority. However, I continue to believe that raising money to invest in our state schools is the right decision.