Comment

Angela Rayner’s Speech to Conference

When Labour forms the next government we are going to have to deal with a legacy of education mismanagement by the Tories which has resulted in more than one million fewer adult learners in the system, one billion cuts to children’s services and a thousand Sure Start centres shut down.  These are the realities facing our Shadow Education Secretary.

Angela rose to the occasion with a barn storming speech full of vision and practical ideas, challenging us to rethink what education is about, and she’s right, it isn’t just about GCSEs and A Levels, it’s also about informing people of their workplace, housing and other social rights.

Today’s conference speech wasn’t just about playing to the crowd, there was a delicate balancing act going on and Angela mixed the radical with a lot of sensible policies too, which indicates she has been listening carefully to those working in the teaching profession.

We are excited at the prospect of a new generation of co-operative schools empowering parents and teachers who want to get involved in running schools, to do so.  The creation of new schools will be backed by £8.4 million in capital investment, which was announced in our 2017 general election manifesto.

A speech full of pragmatism, realism and with a heart for equality and fairness.

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