What are the Labour Party plans for FE?

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, will today outline Labour’s transformational plan to invest in a National Education Service to ensure no one is held back and create a more skilled workforce and productive economy.

Labour’s plan to increase schools funding and introduce free, lifelong education in colleges is at the heart of its commitment to create a society run for the many not the few.

Jeremy will be joined by Angela Rayner, Shadow Education Secretary, and Rebecca Long-Bailey, Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary, at a college in Leeds on Wednesday to announce the details of the plan.

Labour’s key pledges are:

Labour plan to restore education maintenance allowance for college students

• Assuming the same proportion of 16-18 year olds qualify for EMA as previously the cost would be £582 million a year

Scrap fees on courses for adult learners looking to re-train or upskill

• Increase the adult skills budget to £1.5 billion by the end of the parliament in order to abolish upfront fees and increase course funding by an average of 10 per cent year on year.

Jeremy Corbyn said:

“People of all ages are being held back by a lack of funding for education, and this in turn is holding back the economy by depriving industry of the untapped talent of thousands of people.

“The Conservatives have spent seven years starving schools of funding, meaning headteachers are having to send begging letters to parents to ask for money. They have also cut support for students and forced colleges to increase fees. It’s created a downward spiral that is bad for the people being held back and bad for the economy.  

“Labour will do things differently. Our new National Education Service will transform our schools and education system to ensure a future for the many not the few. We will reverse the Conservatives’ tax giveaways to big business and put money back where it belongs, in our schools, our colleges and our communities.”

Angela Rayner said:

“Our plans for a new National Education Service show there is a clear choice at this election. Between the Tories who have broken their promises to parents and children, or a Labour party with a real plan for education for the many not the few.

“We will invest in schools and in our young people, ensuring no primary pupils go hungry during the day, reducing class sizes so children can learn and teachers can teach, and restoring the maintenance allowance and grants for students in both further and higher education.”

The above plans will be funded from the £20 billion that will be raised by reversing the Conservative Party’s cuts to corporation tax. Under the Labour Party plans from next tax year, the headline rate of corporation tax will rise from its current 19 per cent to 21 per cent in 2018-19, 24 per cent in 2019-20 and 26 per cent in 2020-21. This will still leave it at the lowest rate in the G7. The small profits rate, payable by firms with profits below £300,000, will rise less sharply to 20 per cent in 2018-19 and 21 per cent in 2020-21