Labour has no clear plan to recruit teachers despite VAT raid

Telegraph

09-07-2025

Labour has no clear plan to meet its teacher recruitment pledge funded by VAT on private schools, MPs have warned.
A report by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) claimed the Government's flagship education pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers 'lacks a coherent plan' and meaningful targets.
The cross-party group of MPs and peers, more than half of whom belong to Labour, said it was 'unclear how this pledge will be delivered, progress measured, or what achieving it will mean for existing and forecast teacher shortages '.
The promise to attract 6,500 new teachers over the next five years is being funded by the Government's decision to apply 20 per cent VAT on private school fees, which came into force in January.
Labour said in its election manifesto that meeting its teacher target would cost £450 million – or around a third of the £1.5 billion it hopes to raise each year in the initial wake of the VAT policy.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, claimed last month that the plan was already 'working', after Department for Education (DfE) figures showed there were 2,346 more teachers in secondary and special schools compared to last year.
But the PAC report cast doubt on whether this constituted progress, stating that there was 'no information on the baseline against which the pledge will be measured, how it will be split across schools and colleges, or the milestones that will need to be met' to achieve it.
The committee also expressed puzzlement over where the 6,500 target came from in the first place, with the report claiming the DfE simply pointed back to Labour's election manifesto when asked about its origins.
'It did not provide further detail aside from describing it as deriving from 'factors that represented some of the pressures on teacher numbers across schools and colleges, such as vacancy rates'', the report added.
Sarah Olney, a Liberal Democrat MP and one of the authors of the report, told The Telegraph 'there was quite a lot of waffle' over the flagship education pledge.
'The civil servants in front of the committee couldn't give us an answer as to where that particular [6,500] number had come from, where the projections were, how they were going to deliver it, or any sense at all of where geographically teachers were needed,' she said.
Writing for The Telegraph, Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, claimed it showed Labour's flagship education pledge was in 'shambles'.
'This is not just incompetence. It is dishonesty. Ministers continue to insist teacher numbers are rising. They are not. The Government's own data shows the opposite. Labour are now insulting the intelligence of teachers, parents and the public alike,' she said.
It comes as ministers have been accused of shifting the goalposts over their headline commitment on teacher recruitment, with the Tories last month claiming it had been 'abandoned'.
Labour's election manifesto promised to recruit '6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects', but the party has since dropped the commitment for these to be specialists.
Ms Phillipson also clarified earlier this year that the target only applied to teachers in secondary schools, specialist schools and colleges – not primary schools.
The Tories accused ministers of altering the pledge following the latest DfE figures which showed there were 400 fewer teachers across all schools in England in 2024.
This was driven by a drop of around 2,900 primary school teachers, in part because of a falling birth rate.
The DfE said at the time it was 'untrue' to claim the teacher pledge had been adjusted and that Ms Phillipson made clear in February that it only applied to Year 7 teachers and beyond.
It comes despite the Government's current website about its education pledges stating that 'recruiting 6,500 extra teachers' will help it improve progress among five-year-olds.
The PAC report called on ministers to 'lay out the detail behind its pledge for 6,500 more teachers' and to urgently address the reasons for people leaving the profession, including worsening pupil behaviour.
'Lack of clarity'
Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: 'We share the concerns about the lack of clarity over the Government's pledge to deliver 6,500 new teachers.
'This does not seem anything like enough to address future needs and we would urge ministers to address actual teacher shortages rather than fixate on a figure which is largely meaningless.'
A Department for Education spokesperson said: 'This Government is already delivering on our pledge to recruit and retain 6,500 more talented teachers with 2,300 more secondary and special schoolteachers in classrooms this year, as well as 1,300 fewer teachers leaving the profession – one of the lowest leave rates since 2010.
'Since day one, the Education Secretary has worked to reset the relationship with the education sector, announcing pay awards of almost 10 per cent over two years and committed to tackle high workload and poor wellbeing including encouraging schools to offer more flexible working opportunities.
'We are committed to working with teachers as partners in the push for better, driving high and rising standards through our Plan for Change to enable every child to achieve and thrive.'
'Labour is taxing education and giving the proceeds to fix their failure to secure borders'
Across government, Labour's first year has revealed a Government out of its depth. Ministers who weren't ready for office are now lurching from crisis to crisis. But nowhere is the damage clearer, or more deliberate, than in education.
Education was supposed to be one of Labour's flagship missions. A government laser-focused on raising standards. What we've seen instead: fewer teachers, broken promises, and money taken from classrooms to house illegal migrants.
They pledged 6,500 new teachers. They said it was essential and used it to justify taxing education. But a year on, there are over 400 fewer teachers in our schools, according to the Department's own figures.
Worse still, the Prime Minister has now admitted that the money raised by taxing schools isn't even being used for education. It's being diverted to cover the housing of illegal immigrants.
Let's be clear: Labour is taxing education and giving the proceeds to fix their failure to secure borders. Parents were told this would improve schools. It hasn't. The only thing this tax has done is make it harder for parents to choose the right school and has put more pressure on the state sector, all while failing to deliver the teachers we were promised.
Insulting the intelligence of the public
This is not just incompetence. It is dishonesty. Ministers continue to insist teacher numbers are rising. They are not. The government's own data shows the opposite. Labour are now insulting the intelligence of teachers, parents and the public alike.
It is no surprise that today MPs have described the government's pledge as not only 'unclear' but said the Government 'lacks a coherent plan'. In other words, Labour's pledge is a shambles - as clear as mud. In December, the Government said all children should be starting primary school ready to learn and their first milestone to achieve this was to hire 6,500 more teachers. But, instead, teacher numbers are falling.
They are falling because of the decisions Labour have made. Ministers promised schools they would be compensated on the back of Rachel Reeves's Jobs Tax - but they've broken that promise. Across the country, schools have been forced to axe teachers' jobs because of that deceit.
Real problems in our schools are going unaddressed. Labour's bungled Schools Bill mentions nothing that will help improve behaviour in our schools. Instead, Labour have scrapped behaviour hubs, slowed hiring of behaviour and attendance ambassadors, and even voted against proposals to report violence against teachers to the police.
Instead of tackling what matters, teacher retention, pupil discipline, attendance, and smartphones, Bridget Phillipson is fixated on an ideological union-driven crusade to tear up the system that works.
Over the past three decades, a cross-party consensus transformed our schools. Autonomy, accountability and parental choice delivered real improvements. More good schools. Rising attainment in English, Maths and Science. That success story is now at risk.
Chaos and delay
Labour's education vandalism is dismantling the structures that helped raise standards, centralising power in Whitehall, and handing control to civil servants and local bureaucracies. School leaders are being pushed aside. Parental choice is quietly being eroded.
Phillipson's department is lurching between chaos and delay, with no grip on the detail and no clear strategy for improvement. It's becoming obvious that Labour are more interested in pleasing the unions than supporting pupils.
This means Labour will be defined by, fewer teachers, lower standards and less choice for parents. Instead, it will be more bureaucracy all dressed up as reform.
A year ago, Labour promised to transform education. What they've delivered is confusion, centralisation, and a war on the very structures that helped Britain climb the global league tables.
Labour said they'd raise standards. Instead, they've taxed education and spent the money elsewhere. They said they'd hire more teachers. We've ended up with fewer. They said education was their priority, but it's the children, teachers and parents who are paying the price for their broken promises and u-turns.