Labour education cuts

Despite Gordon Brown's ever more ridiculous claims that his government is planning no cuts, the truth is seeping out. Today The Telegraph reports that:

"Despite Gordon Brown pledging to safeguard spending on schools and universities, government documents show that the total education budget will fall by £100 million after the next election.

The disclosure is in statistics that detail the true scale of the Government’s budget reductions for the first time.

Published without fanfare on the Treasury’s website , they show that, throughout government, spending will be cut next year, in real terms, by 0.7 per cent, or almost £3 billion.

The Home Office, the Department of Transport and the Ministry of Justice are among 14 of the 23 departments that will see their budgets fall. The deepest cuts will be made to Lord Mandelson’s Business Department (24.6 per cent) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (22 per cent), according to the documents.

However, it is the drop in education spending that will prove most controversial.

According to the figures, which are adjusted for inflation, total education spending will fall from £85.1 billion in 2009-10 to £85 billion in 2010-11."

Unfortunately because of the way this country is run there will be no formal way of questioning Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson or Alistair Darling about this news until October; but more on hat subject later.