‘Give us back our £79m for schools’ - The Worcester Observer

‘Give us back our £79m for schools’

Worcester Editorial 1st Nov, 2019   0

COUNCIL chiefs will call on the Government to ‘urgently’ restore the £79.8million lost to the city’s state schools since 2015.

The move comes after Labour Coun Lynn Denham amended a proposal put forward by city council Conservative leader Coun Marc Bayliss during a debate at the Guildhall last Tuesday (October 22).

In a stark attack on Labour’s calls for private schools to be abolished, Coun Bayliss had called on the city council to write to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to back the continuation of public, private and voluntary education.

But Coun Denham’s amendment won support across the chamber with only Green Party councillor Majory Bissett abstaining from voting.




“Private schools have a place in the cultural, business and education life of Worcester. As MP for the city I would not for vote for their closure,” she said.

“The position and what is discussed at the Labour Party Conference may or may not become part of the manifesto in due course.


“If we are to write to the Secretary of State I think it’s important we write on behalf of all citizens and not just the seven per cent who benefit from private schools,” she added.

Speaking on his original call, Coun Bayliss launched a thinly-veiled attack on the Labour Party’s conference announcement.

“I believe in the state system, was educated in it and very happy to send my children through that system,” he said.

“Indeed it was the mantra of ‘education, education, education’ which led me into public service in the first instance, although the author of that is now somewhat persona non grata in some quarters.

“But just because I am an advocate of state education and choose that for my own children doesn’t mean that is right for every child and every parent.

“In any decent society parents should have the right to choose the education that suits their child. We must not let dogma get in the way of parents’ rights to choose and a child’s right to an education that suits them.”

His calls were backed by Coun Chris Mitchell who reflected on his own experiences. “My mother’s choices took me from city council estate to Sandhurst for which I will forever be grateful and which shows true social mobility,” he said.

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