TORIES ALLY WITH LABOUR TO SAVAGELY CUT SCOTTISH SPENDING

GOLDIE RENEGES ON PROMISE TO LIMIT CUTS IN SCOTLAND

"WHERE WILL TORY-LABOUR ALLIANCE MAKE THEIR CUTS?"

The Tories in Scotland have reneged on a promise to limit Scottish spending cuts to £28 million and are now backing Labour's plans for £500 million says SNP MSP Joe FitzPatrick – a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee.

Yesterday Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie demanded that £500 million of cuts be identified in Scottish public spending - a figure supported by the Labour party.

This is in direct contradiction to their statement in January when they said that their plans had been drawn up in such a way that Scotland would only have to find £28 million of cuts because they would not affect health and education spending south of the border. (The Scottish budget is determined by spending in departments south of the border under the Barnett Formula.

Commenting Mr FitzPatrick said:

"Annabel Goldie's confirmation yesterday that she now wants to support Labour's plans for £500 million in spending cuts only confirms our previous concerns that the Tories would renege on their promise to limit cuts to £28 million.

"With Annabel Goldie now confirming she is supporting Labour's cuts she now has to follow her own advice and come clean. She has to explain why she has reneged on that promise not to cut spending by £500 million?

"And she and her Labour allies must also say where they will make their planned cuts. That the Tories plan £500 million cuts means that both they and Labour will cut spending to frontline services in health and education in Scotland.

"However they have not identified one area to cut despite calling for details from others. In fact both have been calling for more spending over this very weekend!

"If both were truly standing up for Scotland's public services they would be opposing these cuts like the SNP.

"They would both be agreeing with the SNP that the best way to save the tax payers cash is to dump the multi-billion Trident nuclear missile programme and the last vestiges of ID card, instead of cutting jobs and services.

“And with the latest GERS analysis showing Scotland in budget surplus – with a surplus of some £2.3 billion in the past three years - it beggars belief that two parties in the Scottish Parliament would be following their London bosses' cuts agenda.

"Rather than pay the price for the UK's mismanagement of our economy, the Westminster cuts make it absolutely clear why Scotland needs to gain responsibility for all of own tax and spending with independence.”

Gove condemns Labour's "sham" education plans

Michael Gove has attacked the education plans outlined by Labour yesterday, pointing out that they are a combination of unfunded commitments, re-announcements, and policies that aren’t even supported by their own Ministers.

Legally enforceable home-school contracts were called ‘totally wrong’ by the Schools Minister, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, just three months ago.

Parenting orders have existed since 1998, but not a single one has been applied for in the last five years - and pilots of the one-to-one tuition policy have proved disastrous.

Michael stressed that Ed Balls, Labour’s Schools Secretary, has not given teachers the powers they need to deal with violence and disruption:

“He rejected our plan to give teachers the power to search for banned items. He rejected our plan to let schools make parent contracts compulsory. His new gimmicks will not solve the deep problems we have with bad behaviour in schools.”

Michael, the Shadow Children’s Secretary, also attacked Mr. Balls for rejecting Conservative proposals for radical school reform to create thousands more good school places and raise standards across the board.

“Instead, he has opted for a one-to-one tuition programme that was ineffective - and over budget - when piloted, and a 'September Guarantee' for which the funding doesn't stack up.”

Gove highlights the decline and fall of GCSE history

Michael Gove has accused Labour of “pushing pupils away from harder subjects” after it was revealed that less than one in three sixteen-year-olds now sits GCSE history.

Government figures show that 450,000 pupils of school leaving age did not take the GSCE history exam last year - and five million have missed out since Labour came to power.

Labour’s new primary curriculum announced last month suggested replacing traditional lessons in history and geography with the teaching of ‘topics’ as part of cross-curricular ‘themes’.

Michael, the Shadow Children’s Secretary, warned the new curriculum "will further water down history at primary schools, as well as removing science from the core curriculum. All these reforms take us completely in the wrong direction.”

He added, “The Government’s league tables encourage schools to push pupils away from harder subjects, even if they are of more long-term value.”

Laws: Education department has run out of ideas and direction

Reaction to a speech by Gordon Brown on education David Laws said: "This sounds like pretty desperate stuff from the Prime Minister."

Liberal Democrat shadow children, schools and families secretary, David Laws said; "The vast majority of this speech isn't new, and what is new is unlikely to be delivered by a government which increasingly looks like it is in its final death throws."

David went on to say, "It is pretty rich for Gordon Brown to say he is rejecting the politics of austerity when the Chancellor has just presented spending plans which will involve a real cut in public spending from 2011 onwards."

The proposals which are expected to be part of the Schools White Paper being published in June, would give parents of primary age pupils the right to complain about a secondary school that their children might attend in the future.

David Laws concluded "The education department is fast running out of money and has also clearly run out of ideas and direction. This speech does nothing to challenge the impression of a government which has little to offer either parents or pupils."

Laws: Class sizes should be cut to 15

Liberal Democrat Shadow Schools Secretary, David Laws today called for a massive boost to education spending to allow class sizes to be cut from up to 30 pupils to 15 for all five to seven year olds.

The proposal forms part of a raft of measures to be debated at the Liberal Democrats’ Spring Conference in Harrogate this weekend. Other measures in the policy paper Equity and Excellence include:

· Boosting the funding of the poorest pupils to private school levels, enabling schools to provide more one-to-one tuition and extra catch-up classes
· Replacing the rigid national curriculum with a slimmed down minimum curriculum entitlement
· Radically cutting back national testing and re-investing the savings in improving literacy and numeracy

Commenting, David Laws said:

"Labour has had over a decade to close the gap between rich and poor children in this country, and it has failed.

"We know that smaller class sizes will make a real difference, making it easier for teachers to give young children more individual attention during those important first years at school.

"All children should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential, no matter where they are born.

"Our Pupil Premium will raise funding levels for disadvantaged pupils to those in the private sector. Schools will be able to use this extra cash to fund longer school days, reading and maths, and to attract the best teachers."

A full regional breakdown of class sizes is attached

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