Reeves promises £1.4 billion for ‘crumbling’ classrooms

The government has pledged £1.4 billion to meet a target of rebuilding 50 schools in England a year so children do not have to learn in ‘crumbling’ classrooms.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves made the spending pledge ahead of the autumn Budget next week, following warnings that the School Rebuilding Program has been delayed. Headteachers’ unions have said more is needed for school buildings.

Reeves also announced funding for the expansion of free childcare hours and from breakfast clubs at primary schoolsand promised to “protect” education in Wednesday’s budget.

Labor has warned of “difficult decisions” on the public finances, with government sources telling the BBC it could announce tax rises and cuts worth £40 billion.

The funding promise comes next the BBC revealed that 23 of more than 500 schools The school rebuild program has so far been completed, while the Department for Education (DfE) has failed to meet its targets for hiring builders.

The Treasury said funding for the next financial year was a £550m increase on this year’s spending, which would “ramp up” progress to 50 rebuilds per year.

It said total spending on school and college buildings would be set out in the full budget announcement.

Reeves also said the government will spend £1.8 billion on expanding publicly funded childcare in the next financial year. Further details on childcare spending are also expected to be announced on Wednesday.

The plan to increase that funding between this budget year and the next was laid down in the 2023 spring budget under the previous Conservative government.

The Treasury said it would triple spending on the rollout of free breakfast clubs for primary school pupils in England, from around £11 million this year to around £33 million by 2025.

The government has also announced £44 million to support foster carers and kinship, that is, a child raised in the care of a friend or relative who is not their parent.

The government has already announced its intention to cut winter fuel payments, add VAT to private school fees and scrap some infrastructure projects.

The BBC understands the budget may also include:

• Increasing the National Insurance Rate for employers and lowering the threshold for when employers will pay this
• Changes in other taxes such as inheritance tax and capital gains tax
• Extension of the freeze on income tax thresholds
• £500 million in new funding to build up to 5,000 affordable social homes

Reeves said “protecting education funding” was one of her priorities, and that children “should not suffer” from the “mess” Labor has inherited.

Education Minister Bridget Phillipson said she would “never accept a child having to learn in a crumbling classroom”.

Labor has repeatedly accused the previous government of leaving a £22 billion ‘black hole’ in the public finances – a claim that previous Chancellor Jeremy Hunt described as ‘false’.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT union, said the Government needed to be clear about what it meant by “protecting” funding and called for an increase in per-pupil funding for schools.

He said the money for school buildings was “useful” but there was still “a significant shortfall in terms of what is required to restore the school complex to a satisfactory condition”.

The target of rebuilding 50 schools a year has also been called “woefully unambitious” by Pepe Di’lasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

Christine Farquharson, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the money for the program would be “enough to keep it going into its sixth year”.

First announced in 2020, the School Rebuilding Program aims to rebuild or renovate approximately 500 schools over ten years.

The BBC reported this month that a total of 23 schools have been completed so far, while 490 are still pending. Since then, five more schools have been added to the scheme.

Most do not yet have builders on board. The DfE originally forecast that 83 contracts would have been awarded by March 2023, but its response to a BBC Freedom of Information request revealed that only 62 had been awarded by June 2024.

Industry experts said this construction companies were nervous about taking on contracts in case costs exceed their budget – and that additional funding would help.

One school on the program told the BBC that a construction company had pulled out altogether – apparently due to concerns about costs.

The DfE told the BBC that the program was on target and that the original forecasts were made before events including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affected prices in the industry.

The schools that are part of the rebuilding program are the most needy, according to the DfE.

Only one Report from the National Audit Office last year said funding levels in England had contributed to the “deterioration” of the wider school building.

It said the DfE recommended in 2020 that £5.3 billion a year was needed to maintain schools once the program was expanded.

Ultimately, the DfE asked for an average of £4 billion per year between 2021 and 2025, but the Treasury allocated an average of £3.1 billion per year.

Watch Hazel’s documentary Old School Problems BBC sounds.