Labour is very pleased with the amount of attention it garnered for its new private schools policy when Tristram Hunt unveiled it last week. So it was natural that the Shadow Education Secretary used this as his main line of attack at today’s Education Questions. He set the scene first using one of his shadow ministerial team Alison McGovern, who contrasted bankers’ pay rising by 7 per cent on average with a 1 per cent rise for nursery staff. It was clear that Labour was keen for a game of Us vs Them.
Hunt then piggybacked onto a question from party colleague Ian Lucas about the public benefit of private schools and these comments on the matter by Sir Michael Wilshaw. Nicky Morgan had already responded by arguing that independent schools were having a tougher time at the moment because state schools were improving.
When he got to his feet, Hunt listed examples of token efforts from private schools who receive a good amount of money in tax breaks, then said:
‘Enough is enough.
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