Reeves promises to prioritize education and free childcare for £1.4 billion in the budget

Rachel Reeves announced she would spend £1.4 billion to rebuild the crumbling city schools because she promised to give priority education AND child care In Budget.

Investment in free breakfast clubs for students will also be tripled to a further £1.8 billion expand government-funded nursery care.

The Chancellor said children “should not suffer” from: £22bn ‘black hole’ Labor says it was left by the last Tory government.

However, experts warned that most of the funds would simply be enough to maintain existing programs.

More than 400 schools in the government’s flagship Tory-led recovery program still have no builders.

A BBC investigation found that construction contracts had been awarded to just 62 rebuilding companies by this summer.

The Treasury said the £1.4 billion, an increase of £550 million on last year, would “ensure delivery” of the program first announced in 2020 and the reconstruction of around 50 buildings a year.

A further £1.8 billion will go towards expanding government-funded childcare, and a further £15 million will go towards helping to open nurseries in schools.

Labor has pledged to honor the Tories’ pledge to provide 30 hours of childcare a week during term time for all children over nine months old from September. However, the party warned that the massive expansion of the vital childcare sector would be a challenge.

Last week Independent has revealed that ministers have dropped the word “free” to describe the policy as anger grows over nursery fees. Under plans announced earlier this month, primary schools can now apply for up to £150,000 of the £15 million. The first stage of the plan is expected to support up to 300 new or expanded nurseries across England.

At the Labor Party conference, Ms Reeves announced that a £7m trial of free breakfast clubs would start in as many as 750 schools from April.

However, it announced that this amount would increase to £30 million in 2025-26.

Labour’s manifesto pledges £315 million to ensure children have a good school breakfast by 2028-29.

A further £44 million has been announced to help kinship and foster carers, including a pilot project for a new ‘kinship allowance’ to help families with the costs of arranging the care of a loved one.

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, growing our economy by investing in our future to rebuild our schools, hospitals and broken roads.

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

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the funding would help “put education back at the forefront of national life”.

“This is a budget that will fix the foundations of the country, so there is no better place to start than by ensuring life chances for our children and young people,” she said.

“Our heritage may be terrible, but I will never accept that any child should learn in a crumbling classroom.”

However, Christine Farquharson of the respected think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that “in a tight fiscal context” the commitments “largely reflect decisions to continue programs.”

More than 100 schools, nurseries and colleges in England were forced to close days before the autumn term last year amid concerns about potentially dangerous reinforced autoclaved concrete (Raac).