Education Plans for Rugby Are Barmy!

12.06.02pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 16th Oct 2004

Do We Need More Of These?

Falling school rolls will mean that plans by the Labour and Conservative parties to open extra secondary schools in Rugby would be a major waste of public funds.

That is the claim of the Liberal Democrats' prospective parliamentary candidate for Rugby, Richard Allanach. His analysis comes from an unusual source - the Turner report on pensions.

"The latest pension report shows that the number of children aged 10 and under is falling" said Mr Allanach. "In ten years time the biggest problem Rugby's secondary schools are likely to face is falling rolls. In this context the plans of both the Labour and Conservative parties to spend what little extra money schools might get on extra places is not just a mistaken priority - it is downright barmy."

Both the Labour and Conservative parties have recently been calling for more choice in secondary education. At their recent conference the Tories called for an extra 600,000 school places to be created. However Mr Allanach points out that Rugby already has seven secondary schools. "Building another secondary school in Rugby would provide more choice" says Mr Allanach "but spending several million pounds to create a thousand extra empty places would be too high a price to pay. At the general election we shall argue that any extra money for schools should go into supporting our teachers to do their job well."