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Primary School Places (London)

I have a few brief points to make about the situation in Brent. First, however, let me congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) on securing the debate, which is very timely, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) has said. This issue has been bothering many MPs and councillors, as well as the many parents who face huge difficulties as they look for school places for their children for September. The situation in Brent is challenging. Between 2006 and 2007, its schools faced a 9 per cent. increase in the number of applications for reception class places. Reception class numbers fluctuated between 3,000 pupils in 2006 and 3,265 in 2007, and the council had immense difficulty in meeting that need. It applied to the Government for emergency funding, which was refused, and it did its best to meet the need by installing temporary buildings and making use of bulge classes in a similar way to the council described by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton. However, those solutions are not permanent, and can be used only for a couple of years. In addition, large numbers of children have still been left without a permanent school place. Some Government funding was provided for temporary buildings for two forms of entry at the relatively new ARK academy, and one new form of entry was provided by rebuilding Wembley primary school, but that was done locally, using money from the council, and not through any extra Government funding. Even with those additions, the council needs three more forms of entry on a permanent basis. It hopes to use some of the early years element of the primary capital programme to provide extra capacity by expanding one primary school. However, as I mentioned in my intervention, the problem with that funding scheme is that it is strongly focused on underperforming schools, on improving performance and on providing buildings for underperforming schools, rather than on dealing with capacity problems. Many old primary schools in Brent are in urgent and desperate need of modernisation. We have had cases of roofs falling in, and of the council not having extra funding immediately available to tackle that problem, so there is an urgent need to modernise some buildings. In addition, we are facing a dramatic increase in the number of children applying to primary schools in Brent. As with Building Schools for the Future for secondary schools, that funding scheme is not focused on tackling capacity needs. As I have mentioned, 44 children in Brent are without a school place. Not all of them have been waiting since the start of term, as we have a highly transient population and people move in and out of the borough during the school year, but there are often long waits for children to get a place when they move into the borough. Currently, 16 children are without a reception class place, and the situation does not improve for secondary schools, as 74 children are waiting for a secondary school place. Brent urgently needs extra capital investment in schools, and it simply cannot wait. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton said parents did not want huts and temporary classrooms, but even temporary classrooms would be a step forward for Brent in the immediate future, with a promise of long-term funding so that they can rebuild the primary schools that are needed. I implore the Minister to look at the situation in Brent and other London boroughs. We cannot have a situation in which so many children lack school places as the level of deprivation in Brent makes the environment challenging enough, so I hope that the Minister will make that a priority.