News from Southampton Labour

Denham calls on Cameron to come clean on school funding

John Denham has called on the Tories to come clean on whether all proposed building Schools for the Future schools would be funded by a Tory Government.

Yesterday on a visit to Southampton David Cameron was reported as promising the funding for the city’s five BSF schools would be guaranteed. But Mr Denham pointed out that Tory schools minister Nick Gibb had recently said the Conservatives were not committed to any schemes which had not reached financial close’ (meaning that all the scheme had been agreed and contracts signed). And the Tories have also said they would cut the BSF programme by £4.5bn and spend the money elsewhere.

Mr Denham said: “Either David Cameron is being deliberately misleading – pretending Southampton’s schools are safe when they are not – or he has done a spectacular u-turn and has a £4.5bn hole in his spending plans.”

Mr Denham said the only way to be sure that Southampton gets its five new schools was to Vote Labour.

Under Labour’s flagship “Building Schools for the Future” scheme, £110 million of money from the Labour Government would be spent building world class secondary schools for Southampton.

Mr Denham said: “We all know that while school standards have risen in Southampton they have not improved as quickly as other parts of the country. The new schools offered the best possible boost to parents and children.

“The Southampton schemes are due to be considered by a key committee of civil servants on Thursday 28th April. But there is no way they can get final approval and contracts signed by May 6th’.”

“This means that, assuming the schemes get approval tomorrow, the future of all five schools will be decided by the General Election on 6th May.”

“Parents and pupils across Southampton are banking on our plans to improve the city’s schools. I worked very hard to get the £110m rebuilding programme brought forward so it could start this year. If Labour wins the schemes will go ahead. If the Conservatives win they will be put on hold and quite possibly scrapped as part of the Tories emergency budget.”

The five schools under threat are:

* Chamberlayne College for the Arts;
* Upper Shirley High School;
* Sholing Technology College;
* St George’s Catholic School;
* Bitterne Park School.

The first four would be entirely rebuilt under Labour, while Bitterne Park School was due to undergo a massive makeover with extensive refurbishment and new buildings.

The city successfully won a government bid to become part of the Building Schools for the Future scheme two years ago. Under the 15-year BSF scheme, every secondary school in England is due to be rebuilt or replaced by 2020, at a cost of £55 billion.

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