Phillipson praises foreign students but says Labour won’t remove Tory cap on numbers – UK politics live

has said that its child poverty taskforce met yesterday to start the work on its strategy, which it expects to publish in spring.

Co-chaired by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall and education secretary Bridget Phillipson, the government said it will “hear directly from struggling families and children, frontline staff and leading campaigners, charities and organisations across the UK to shape the strategy.”

Kendall said “Child poverty is a scar on our society. It harms children’s life chances and our country as a whole. We will take action in every department, with a comprehensive strategy to drive down poverty and drive up opportunity.”

Phillipson said “this taskforce, working across government, is essential to ensure all departments are supporting this ambition and delivering on our mission of breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child.”

The taskforce will be supported by a new child poverty unit in the Cabinet Office, the statement said.

Martin Kettle – In cancelling his family summer holiday, Keir Starmer has made his first serious mistake

Labour have inherited a well-functioning economy, and that the party is exaggerating the depths of financial mismanagement it is accusing the last administration of.

Shadow health and social care secretary Victoria Atkins has responded to chancellor Rachel Reeves’ earlier comment “We are under no illusion as to the scale of the challenge we have inherited from the Conservatives after more than a decade of low growth” by saying “You inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first six months of 2024.”

Chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, has had no truck with this line of argument. PA Media report he told broadcasters in a clip:

The last Conservative government left this new Labour government with the highest tax burden since the 1940s, the highest debt burden for over 60 years and a huge cost for just paying the interest on that debt every single month.

And as the Chancellor and I set out in parliament a few weeks ago, they left us with over £20bn of bills coming through the door here at the Treasury with no money to pay for it. That doesn’t sound like a good inheritance to me.

Challenged as to whether Labour were attempting to put a negative spin on some positive economic news, he said “What we inherited from the Conservatives was the worst fiscal inheritance since the second world war. We’ve got much, much more work to do to recover from the mess that we are left with.”

pointed out, the headline figure of the pay deal may be above the present level of inflation, but train drivers are not getting a rise at the level inflation was running during the years-long dispute with the previous Tory administration, which, he said, repeatedly refused to meet to negotiate a settlement.Bridget Phillipson has said that “private schools are businesses that can make choices about how they manage their budgets” and that Labour’s well publicised plans to remove VAT exemption from schools fees were about driving up standards in the state sector.

Challenged on Sky News about announcements of private school closures ahead of the change in their tax exempt status, Phillipson said “I think what we’ve seen with some of the examples that have been discussed are schools that were already experiencing big budget shortfalls, weren’t attracting the numbers of students that they might like to attract, and that’s what’s driving what we see.”

She said:

Private schools are businesses that can make choices about how they manage their budgets, the level of fees that they charge, and ultimately, it’s about how attractive they are to families in terms of the numbers of students that are sent there. We have seen private schools in recent years whack up their fees year on year, way beyond inflation, and that has priced out lots of people.

Our plans to impose VAT on private school fees are about driving high standards in our state schools. We’ve got a big challenge at the moment in terms of recruiting and retaining brilliant teachers. I’m determined that we will crack that, that we will make sure that teaching is a great place for people to come and work.

We’ve already made progress in terms of the teaching pay award, that we were able to deliver, but we need to do more, and we do need to raise money to invest in our public services and to invest in our schools. And that’s my focus as secretary of state, making sure that we’ve got brilliant teachers supporting our young people.

The education secretary was also at pains to point out the small number of people affected compared to the state education sector. She told viewers:

I want private schools to be an option for those parents who choose to send their children there, of course, they will be able to continue to do so. I know the parents want to do what’s right by their children, and that’s absolutely as it should be.

But I would just gently point out that 93% of children in our country go to state schools. That’s where I’m determined to focus my efforts as secretary of state.

To tackle some of those big gaps that we see opening up where it comes to outcomes for our young people, making sure that the background that you’re from, the town that you’re born, doesn’t determine what you can go on to achieve.

And that does involve making political choices about how we raise money, how we spend money, and that’s what imposing VAT on private schools is all about, driving up standards in our state sector, where the majority of your viewers will send their children to school.

Bridget Phillipson has refused to commit the government to either lifting or freezing the student fees cap in England and Wales. She said she was “looking at what the options around that will be”, but suggested that raising the cap would be “unpalatable”.

Asked “will you at any point in the five years ahead cut the tuition fees caps for domestic students?” she said:

I do want to ensure that we reform the system overall. I’ve been looking at what the options around that will be, and I hope at a later stage to be able to say more about that.

It had been pointed out to her that there had only been a £250 increase in the maximum domestic student tuition fee in the last 12 years, which had seen periods of rampant inflation and which was applying financial pressure to institutions.

Phillipson, who during the interview also pointed out that foriegn students paying higher uncapped fees were cross-subsidising students from the UK, said:

I do recognise the challenge, and I hear that message from institutions as well, but I think [raising fees is] a really unpalatable thing to be considering, not least because I know that lots of students across the country are already facing big challenges around the cost of living, housing costs. Lots of students I speak to are already working lots of jobs, extra hours, in order to pay for their studies.

echoed the messaging of her colleague Darren Jones yesterday about inflation, saying the government is “under no illusion” about the situation.

Rachel Reeves said:

The new government is under no illusion as to the scale of the challenge we have inherited after more than a decade of low economic growth and a £22bn black hole in the public finances.

That is why we have made economic growth our national mission and we are taking the tough decisions now to fix the foundations, so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of the country better off.

UK economy continues recovery from recession with GDP growth of 0.6%

Bridget Phillipson has defened the number of international students at universities, saying that they “have got an important contribution to make in our towns and cities” and “will be cross-subsidising the studies of students from the UK”, but said the government had no plans to remove the recent cap on numbers set by the outgoing Conservative government.

She told viewers of Sky News:

I do think international students have got an important contribution to make in our towns and cities. They’re part of the growth and the opportunities that will be available for the whole community. And our universities are a tremendous engine of growth in so many of those places, and I want to help them to succeed.

In economic terms, where it comes to the communities where they will live – Sunderland, where I’m the member for parliament – we have lots of students that come from around the world, often as post graduate students, that study and make a contribution.

But it’s also a big part of our reach around the world, the impact that we can have as a country, the business links, the trading links, the opportunities and the bridges that we build between nations. And I think education is just a force for good across our world, and we should recognise that and work together as nations.

Asked specifically “the visa restrictions for foreign students that the last government imposed right at the end of their government, we haven’t really seen the full effects of it yet. Should those be reversed?”, she said “We don’t intend to change that.”

growth of 0.6% in the three months to June. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the government was prioritising growth as a national mission

It is Martin Belam here again today. I find it helpful if you email me if you spot typos, errors or omissions – [email protected].

Source: theguardian.com