Farron welcomes Government climb-down on schools cash raid

3.00.00pm GMT Tue 30th Oct 2007

Local MP Tim Farron has today welcomed the news that the Government is to drop plans to raid almost £2 billion earmarked for schools. Mr Farron last week criticised the Government for announcing the plans and wrote to the Secretary of State for Schools Ed Balls, calling for the plans to be dropped.

Mr Farron said:

"This daft idea should never have seen the light of day. Head teachers and governors across the country were outraged about how the clawback was set to have a devastating impact on their school budgets and could even have led to staffing cuts.

"I am particularly pleased that the retrospective aspect of it, which could have seen the Government demand money that had already been spent, will be dropped. Ministers must now come clean and accept that these proposals were wrong, and assure schools that they will not seek to resurrect them in a year's time when the row has died down."