Reeves pledges £1.4bn for ‘crumbling’ classrooms

Reeves said “protecting funding for education” was among her priorities, and that children “should not suffer” for the “mess” inherited by Labour.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she would “never accept that any child should learn in a crumbling classroom”.

Labour has repeatedly accused the previous government of leaving a £22bn “black hole” in the public finances – a claim previous chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, described as “spurious”.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the head teachers’ union, the NAHT, said the government needed to be clear about what it meant by “protecting” funding and called for an increase in funding per pupil for schools.

He said the money for school buildings was “helpful” but that there was still “a significant shortfall in terms of what is needed to restore the school estate to a satisfactory condition”.

The target of rebuilding 50 schools a year has also been called “woefully unambitious” by Pepe Di’lasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

Christine Farquharson, associate director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the money for the programme would be “enough to keep [it] going in its sixth year”.