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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I am going to deal with some of the comments that the hon. Gentleman made during the debate. If he will forgive me, I shall ask him to wait until then, because I particularly want to talk about the NHS, about which he was concerned. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) talked about education, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones). Contrary to the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Brent, East, the Department for Education and Skills will be one of the greatest beneficiaries of yesterday’s settlement in the next spending review period. She asked about the significance of the 2.5 per cent. real-terms increase over the comprehensive spending review. When we do our public finances, we take a cautious view, based on below trend growth. That means that we take a base view of the public finances at 2.5 per cent., which means that education funding over this next period will continue to grow in line with gross domestic product. So, instead of education funding being 4.7 per cent. of GDP, as it was in 1997, it will be 5.6 per cent. during this comprehensive spending review period. Education will also take an increased share of the CSR increases. In the past five years, education took 13.3 per cent. of the cash increase in the total managed expenditure. In the coming CSR period, it will take 14.4 per cent. In other words, education will take a greater share of the new public spending in this spending review period than it has in the past five years. This is a very good settlement for education. It will mean, just as it has over the past 10 years, big improvements in all our schools: more equipment, more computers, more books, more teachers and supply staff, and more students making the grades that we expect them to. We have also seen more schools rebuilt in the past five years than in the previous 25. As the Secretary of State said earlier, we have seen essential investment over the recent period, accompanied by important reforms. The extra investment will allow us to do still more. There will be one-to-one teaching for 600,000 students, the number of apprentices will double to 500,000, and we will increase the number of higher education students by another 60,000. Every school will become an extended community school.