Pupils lose out as bill blocked

MORE than 1,600 children in Oldham will be denied one-to-one tuition in English and maths after the Tories blocked the proposals in Parliament.

The Government was trying to push through the proposals during the “wash-up”period before the dissolution of Parliament — but they needed cross-party agreement to get remaining legislation through.

In December, Schools secretary Ed Balls said £1.5 million was to be handed to Oldham’s education chiefs to pay for intensive bursts of one-to-one tuition for the most needy pupils.

It was thought 838 seven-to-10 year olds across the borough would benefit from the tuition with a qualified tutor this academic year, along with 801 11-to-16 year olds.

The promise was part of the The Children, Schools and Families Bill.

Mr Balls said: “The Conservatives have shown their true colours by blocking Labour’s guarantee of one-to-one tuition and catch-up support for every child falling behind.

“This is hugely disappointing but should come as no surprise since the Tories have made clear that schools would see immediate cuts this year.

“By sabotaging our bill the Tories seem determined to deny children the extra help they need and would set back our drive to keep standards rising in every school.”

Labour have promised to reintroduce the legislation if they get elected for a fourth term.

The Tories said they had successfully blocked parts of the bill that “posed a direct threat to the professional autonomy of heads and teachers and to the freedom of parents.”

A party spokesman said: “This bill would have meant a great new wave of bureaucracy swamping schools and it is good news that it has collapsed.

“Teachers will breathe a sigh of relief. We want to give teachers more power to deal with bad behaviour and more protection.

“The Government refuses to give teachers the power to search for hardcore pornography because it claims that would breach children’s human rights.

“The Government wants to give children the power to control whether teachers get promoted. We think this is crazy. People will soon be able to vote and have their say.”

The Government was also forced to abandon its plans to introduce the 50p phone tax to ensure everyone received broadband.

The 50p a month landline tax that was set to fund the roll-out of superfast broadband infrastructure to rural parts of the UK that providers find too costly to link-up should have come in to force in October.

A cross-party Commons business committee previously claimed the levy would hit the elderly and those on lower incomes hardest.