U-Turn on School Cash Grab Welcomed

Liberal Democrat Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, David Laws MP, has welcomed the Government's U-Turn on its proposals to impose a 5% 'tax' on school cash balances. The Government today announced in a parliamentary statement that the proposed claw back of school finances would no longer be implemented.

David Laws has led calls for the plans to be shelved, tabling a parliamentary motion and raising the concerns of headteachers and governors with the Schools Secretary.

Over 20,000 schools would have been hit by the proposed change, which would have even affected money already committed to major building projects.

Commenting, David Laws said:

"This daft idea should never have seen the light of day.

"Headteachers and governors across the country were outraged about how the claw back was set to have a devastating impact on their school budgets and could even have led to staffing cuts.

"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.

"The fact that such absurd proposals were put forward in the first place highlights a wider problem with the way this Government works. Do ministers seriously believe that they know better than 23,000 headteachers and governing bodies how to spend the money given to them?"