LIB DEMS WELCOME NEW PUPIL PREMIUMS

BRISTOL’S Liberal Democrat education chief, Clare Campion-Smith, has welcomed government plans to bring in pupil premiums to help disadvantaged children.
“This has been a flagship policy for the Lib Dems and I’m delighted the Coalition government is introducing premiums next September,” said Councillor Campion-Smith, who is executive member for children and young people at Bristol City Council.
“This is a real Liberal Democrat achievement and will greatly help children from less well-off families.
“The Conservatives – with whom our party is sharing power at Westminster – had a similar policy. But I’m particularly proud that it will be funded from outside the budget for schools – and that it was the Lib Dems who pushed for this.”
Lib Dem Minister for Children and Families Sarah Teather said: “From next year, schools taking disadvantaged children will get the additional money they need to provide them with the extra support they deserve.
“This could mean more individual tuition or catch-up classes, but it will be for the school to decide.”
Ms Teather said the premiums policy had been a sticking point in the failed negotiations with Labour following the general election in May.
She said: “They simply refused to agree to it. If any of us ever needed another example of Labour’s complete failure to represent the poor and the emptiness of their rhetoric, this is it.
“It is the Liberal Democrats who are now the party for the most disadvantaged.”