MP backs Labour's modernisation of secondary education in Hull

Hull North MP Diana Johnson MP today backed the Labour Government's plans to invest £220 million to transform Hull's secondary schools.

Plans to either rebuild or renovate every secondary school in the country under Labour's 15-year Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme moved a step forward for Hull today as Hull City Council published plans for the City's schools.

These plans, subject to local consultation through the summer, include three new schools set up under the academy model created by the Labour Government in the Education Act 2002.

Diana Johnson MP said: "The £220 million of investment in Hull secondary schools that the Labour Government's Building Schools for the Future programme makes available has the potential to transform education in Hull for the better.

"The scale of this investment, opposed at Westminster by the Lib Dems and Tories, is unprecedented - and it would not remain secure without a Labour Government.

"To ensure that standards and aspirations are raised in Hull's schools, reform and modernisation must accompany this investment. I am pleased that Hull's BSF proposals take forward Labour's 2005 General Election manifesto pledge on introducing academy schools. Lib Dem MPs voted against the academy school model when the Education Act that created them went through Parliament in 2002.

"Having a broad range of high-performing local secondary schools will help to further improve education standards in Hull, adding to the diversity of the City's secondary education and ensuring that parental choice is not just available to the better off.

"Academies and trust school will focus strongly on learning and discipline, with schools developing their own specialities and ethos within the core teaching of the national curriculum.

"To ensure that the £220 million of Labour BSF investment is used to the maximum positive effect, I am urging Hull parents to engage fully in the consultation meetings that Hull City Council is undertaking through the summer."

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