In its General Election manifesto, published on 21 November 2019, Britain’s Labour Party has pledged significant financial support for arts education in schools, a radical reform of Early Years provision and an end to the ‘marketisation’ of the school system.
Key points from the Manifesto
Early Years
- Reversal of cuts to the Sure Start scheme
- New Sure Start Plus service focussing the under-2s
- 150,000 new Early Years staff
- Introduction of national pay scale
Schools
- Schools to be properly resourced with increased longterm funding, including for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities
- Schools to be ‘poverty-proofed’, including free school meals for all primary school children
- Academies and free schools to be brought under local authority control
- Ofsted to be replaced by new body designed to drive school improvement
- ‘Off-rolling’ to be ended by making schools accountable for the outcomes of pupils who leave their rolls
- Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs and baseline assessments to be scrapped
- Primary class size limited to 30
- Private schools’ ‘tax loopholes’ to be closed
Further Education and Lifelong Learning
- Reintroduction of Education Maintenance Allowance
- Free lifelong training entitlement to training up to Level 3 and six years’ training at Levels 4-6
- Additional entitlements for workers in industries significantly affected by industrial transition
- Reform of existing careers advice
Higher Education
- Abolition of tuition fees and reintroduction of maintenance grants
- Development of new funding formula for HE ensuing adequate funding for teaching and research and widening of access to HE
Arts and culture
- Arts Pupil Premium introduced to every primary school in England
- £160m to ensure creative and arts education is embedded in secondary education
- £1bn Cultural Capital fund for libraries, museums and galleries
- New Town of Culture competition
- Consultation on ways to address the gender imbalance in the digital creative industries
- Review of copyright framework
