Chancellor Rachel Reeves will budget £1.4 billion for failing schools and childcare

Rachel Reeves pledged £1.4 billion to rebuild failing schools and triple funding for free breakfast clubs in the run-up to the first budget.

The Chancellor said children “should not suffer” from the UK’s public budget being cut, despite Work the government must plug the so-called £22 billion ‘black hole’.

But economists said the funding would essentially ensure a continuation of existing plans rather than paying for many new initiatives, and teachers said much more money was needed.

The Treasury said the £1.4 billion would “ensure delivery” of the schools recovery program announced in 2020 under then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

It aims to rebuild or renovate about 500 schools over ten years, but progress is slow.

The £1.4 billion figure is understood to represent an increase of £550 million on last year in support of the scheme.

Last year, over 100 schools, kindergartens and colleges in England took part forced to close a few days before the fall semester due to autoclaved reinforced concrete safety concerns (Raac).

Budget co-financing for nurseries, breakfast clubs and child care

The Treasury also confirmed that £1.8 billion would go towards expanding government-funded childcare and a further £15 million to fund school nurseries.

The Treasury said the first stage of the plan would cover the costs of creating 300 new or expanded nurseries across England.

Mrs. Reeves she also said she would “triple” investment in free breakfast clubs to £30m in 2025-26, after announcing at the Labor Party conference in September The £7m trial in as many as 750 schools will start in April.

In its manifesto, Labor pledged to spend £315 million on breakfast clubs by 2028-29.

Christine Farquharson, a researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said the new £30 million figure appeared to be “an injection on the £7 million previously announced”.

“But this is still only one tenth of the funds that the Labor Party plans to spend for 2028–2029 as part of the Labor Party’s manifesto, so most of the work on implementation is still ahead of us,” she added.

The Chancellor said: “This government’s first budget will set out how we fix the foundations of the country. This will mean difficult decisions, but also the beginning of a new chapter for the UK.

“Protecting education funding was one of the things I wanted to do first because our children are the future of this country. We may have inherited a mess, but we shouldn’t have to suffer because of it.”

New pilot scheme aims to support more ‘stable and loving homes’

A further £44 million will help kinship families and foster carers, including piloting the new kinship allowance to see if it can increase the number of children taken in by family and friends.

The government hopes to “keep more children in stable and loving homes.”

Ms Farquharson said that “in a tight budgetary context” commitments “largely reflect decisions to continue programs”.

She said: “The allocation of £1.4 billion for the school recovery program next year will be enough to take what was always intended as a 10-year program forward into its sixth year.

“The £1.8 billion to introduce new childcare entitlements also confirms the plans set out under the previous government.”

School principals present what else is needed

School leaders warned that the funding announcement left “significant gaps in what is needed to restore school assets to a satisfactory condition”.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Principal Teachers trade union, said: “It is reassuring to hear that school funding will be protected next year and that education will continue to be prioritized as schools face ongoing financial pressures.

“It is now important that the government is very clear about what the word ‘protected’ means.

“We are calling on the government to use the reductions in pupil numbers that some schools are struggling with to increase per pupil funding in both the short and long term.”

He said the £1.4 billion was “helpful” but urged the Treasury to use next spring’s spending review to commit to a “mainstream schools rebuilding program”.

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A Conservative Party spokesman said: “In government, the Conservatives have consistently focused on giving every child the best possible start in life.

“We launched the biggest expansion of child care in history, hired 27,000 teachers and raised school standards.

“On the other hand, Labor is breaking its promises to the public.

“Just as they broke promises to raise taxes and tinker with fiscal rules, they broke promises to students – introducing a new education tax and planning to cancel dozens of new school projects.”

What else can we expect from the budget?

Ms Reeves will also use her first budget on Wednesday announce a change to UK debt rules.

It is intended to pave the way for the government to spend billions more on long-term infrastructure projects.

This is expected of her too increase the employer’s insurance premium by a maximum of two percentage points and lower the threshold at which employers pay contributions – which would raise a total of around £20 billion.

Capital gains tax, inheritance tax and fuel tax are other revenue-raising options Ms Reeves is considering as she looks to shore up the economy.