The Northern Ireland Department of Education has been allocated £2.6 billion of resource, which represents a 1.8% reduction from 2022-23. Education is a devolved matter and, in the absence of an Executive or Assembly, the assessments of any potential impacts of those decisions are matters for the Northern Ireland Department of Education.
The Children’s Law Centre has warned that cuts to Northern Ireland’s budget could be in breach of the commitments made to children in the Good Friday agreement, with services for disadvantaged children the primary target. How will the Secretary of State ensure that budget cuts do not cause active harm to the most vulnerable children in Northern Ireland’s schools?
We share the hon. Lady’s concern; that is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met the Children’s Law Centre last week. I would say to her, as gently as I can, that, according to Ulster University, the current structural division in Northern Ireland’s education system is inefficient and maintaining it comes at a cost of £226 million a year, or about £600,000 every day. I think we all have to ask ourselves very serious questions about how that money can best be spent, and she gives us some illustrations.
My hon. Friend rightly points to the benefits of integration in Northern Ireland’s education system, but he must recognise that it is a matter of great concern that as the Government seek to increase education spending in real terms, it is declining in absolute terms in Northern Ireland over the coming years. Is that not a reason to get an Executive in place as soon as possible that can address the long-term issues of reform that education and businesses are calling out for?
I agree fully with my hon. Friend; he is right that it is absolutely necessary to get on with structural reform and it is a matter of concern that we are in this position. Reform is necessary across a broad range of public services to make the public finances sustainable.
I call the shadow Minister.
On his visit to Belfast last month, the Prime Minister expressed the view that integrated education should be
“the norm, rather than the exception”.
However, the current strategy for growing integrated education has no targets for student numbers and does not specify how much money will be spent. Will the Minister outline how the Government will ensure that integrated education becomes the norm?
As the hon. Lady knows, that policy is a matter for a restored Executive. The first thing we need to do is to encourage all parties to get back into the Executive and bring forward that strategy. I am grateful for this indication that she and I will be united in pressing this forward and saying that we should have integrated education as the norm. I have heard people’s concerns on the other side of the argument, and of course I am in favour of faith schools and freedom of religion, but we need to make sure that never again does a Minister go to Northern Ireland and hear a young person say that they were 16 or 18 before they met their first Unionist or their first Catholic. That is something I have experienced, and I am not at all happy about it.