Sadiq Khan pledges action on growing schools crisis

Building plans: Labour mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan
Alex Lentati
Pippa Crerar15 April 2016

Funding to build desperately needed new schools across London will be cut by more than half by 2018, official figures have shown.

The Department for Education cash is set to fall from £323 million in 2015 to £141 million three years later.

It means London’s share of the national funding for new schools will fall from 25 per cent last year to 14 per cent in 2018. Some 13 London boroughs are not expected to receive any funding.

The capital has the biggest shortfall of school places in the UK with town hall experts predicting it will need 131,000 more by 2020.

The figures come ahead of primary school offer day when parents find out whether their children have got places in their chosen schools.

Labour’s mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan, who obtained the figures, pledged to take action on the growing school places crisis.

If elected, he said he would convene a working group of councils to make sure new schools were built where they were most needed.

The Tooting MP warned the drop in funding could lead to more children missing out on a place at a school of their choice.

He said: “My daughters are teenagers and I remember only too well the panic as we waited to hear whether they had got a place at the school of their choice. Fewer children in London are getting their top choice because of the growing shortage of places.”

Schools minister Nick Gibb said: “Khan’s figures are wrong and show why he just can’t deliver for London’s parents.

"One third of all places created since 2010 have been in London and through the free schools programme we have created 50,000 new places in the capital.”

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