Ten days to save our schools from devastating Tory cuts

By Ed Balls /@EdBalls4MP

There are just ten days to go and we’ve got the fight of our lives on our hands. But from the 30 or so marginal seats I’ve been to over the last fortnight I know that the entire Labour Party, from Gordon Brown’s cabinet down to our grassroots activists and volunteers, is fired up, determined and working day in day out to win.

Because for all the media talk about process, polls and hypothetical outcomes, on the issues that really matter – the economy, public services and support for families – the policy choices could not be starker.

And, as I set out at Unison’s school support staff conference today, there’s a big choice on education and children’s services too.

Today I am pledging that a re-elected Labour government will make these key guarantees to parents and pupils:

* We will deliver rising funding per pupil to keep our teachers and teaching assistants in the classroom and keep class sizes down.

* Children falling behind in the 3Rs will get one-to-one tuition and catch-up support.

* Every young person will get a guaranteed place in sixth form, college, training or an apprenticeship up to 18.

* We will see through our programme to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school.

* And we will build on our universal early years services – the network of Sure Start children’s centres we created and free nursery places for three and four year olds, extended to 15 hours per week from September.

The Tories won’t match any of these guarantees – they’d tear them up.

First, they’re committed to immediate cuts to our schools. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says Tory plans to cut £6 billion this year would see the schools and children’s budget – the biggest unprotected budget for the Conservatives – slashed by £1.7 billion this year.

That’s the same amount as the Tories are going to spend on their inheritance tax cut for millionaires. David Cameron and George Osborne have chosen to cut billions from our schools and give it to the richest estates in our country instead.

It would mean cutting over 38,000 schools staff. It would mean losing more than 14,000 teachers and 12,000 teaching assistants. It would mean nearly 12,000 other support staff being cut too – the cooks, cleaners and caretakers who are the backbone of our schools.

But the Tories would be making even bigger cuts on top of this. As we heard this morning, leading Conservative councillors with real experience of education have let the cat out of the bag and confirmed what we and educational experts have been saying all along. The only way David Cameron and Michael Gove’s ‘free market’ schools plans can work is, as the councillors say, by making deep and immediate cuts to schools that children are already attending.

Second, they don’t support our guarantee of one-to-one tuition for children who need it – in fact they blocked it from our Schools Bill in parliament just a few weeks ago.

Third, they consistently refuse to match our school leavers guarantee because they don’t think every young person can succeed – excellence can only be for some, they say. It’s the same attitude that leads the Tories to say vocational qualifications are second class, when we know that the historic divide between academic and vocational learning has damaged our country for too long.

Fourth, the Tories would cut our school building programme. As we saw last week, the Tories would even pull the plug on projects that are already underway – putting over 750 new school buildings across the country at risk of cancellation.

And finally, they would destroy the principle of free universal early years services. Sure Start would be cut and taken away from families on middle and modest incomes. And as we learned yesterday, the Tories have a secret plan to allow top-up fees to be charged to parents for our free nursery places.

So we’ve got just 10 days to save our schools from devastating Tory cuts. 10 days to save thousands of teachers and teaching assistants. 10 days to save our children’s centres, free childcare places and education or training for every young person up to 18.

We’ve seen a transformation in our schools over the last 13 years: more teachers and teaching assistants, smaller class sizes, record exam results, the historic gap between the poorest children and the rest finally starting to narrow, and more young people staying at school or college or getting an apprenticeship – backed by EMAs for those on lower incomes.

Of course there are tougher times ahead. So we will cut £500m from central programmes and agencies. And I have challenged schools to find around £1billion of savings from better procurement and by schools working more closely together – savings which they can recycle to the frontline.

But we will protect frontline funding for schools, Sure Start and 16-19 education because there’s more to do to give every child the best start in life and every young person the opportunities they deserve. And we can only do that with a majority Labour government. People used to say a Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote. Now some people are saying it’s a safe vote. But in most constituencies a vote for the Lib Dems or staying at home risks letting the Tories back in.

What the Tories are promising would tear up all this progress. It would send us back to the days when schools were starved of funds – and the life chances of millions of children were damaged.

We can’t stand back and let that happen. That’s why Gordon Brown, the whole Labour Cabinet and the whole party will be stepping up our campaign and setting out the choice over the next 10 days. We’ve got the fight of our lives on our hands, but for our schools, parents and children this is an election we can and must win.