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| Treasury pledges extra £10bn for England school repair | Treasury pledges extra £10bn for England school repair |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| The government has pledged to spend an extra £10bn on repairing school buildings in England. | The government has pledged to spend an extra £10bn on repairing school buildings in England. |
| Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander told the Commons the money would mean the programme to re-build schools in most urgent need would be finished two years ahead of schedule. | Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander told the Commons the money would mean the programme to re-build schools in most urgent need would be finished two years ahead of schedule. |
| Work on the 261 schools on the Priority School Building Programme would be completed by 2017, he said. | Work on the 261 schools on the Priority School Building Programme would be completed by 2017, he said. |
| Councils and schools have complained about delays to the scheme. | Councils and schools have complained about delays to the scheme. |
| So far, construction work has begun at just one school, although the government says more will "follow shortly". | |
| The scheme replaced the larger Building Schools for the Future programme, which was scrapped by the coalition government, which said it was "expensive and wasteful". | |
| The delays to the replacement scheme were due to problems raising private finance and the £10bn pledge is aimed at plugging that gap. | |
| New school places | |
| Mr Alexander also told MPs one million new school places would be created in England in a decade. | Mr Alexander also told MPs one million new school places would be created in England in a decade. |
| There is a severe shortage of school places in some areas, mainly at primary school level, linked to the rising birth rate. | There is a severe shortage of school places in some areas, mainly at primary school level, linked to the rising birth rate. |
| The National Audit Office warned in the spring that a quarter of a million extra places would be needed in England by autumn 2014. | The National Audit Office warned in the spring that a quarter of a million extra places would be needed in England by autumn 2014. |
| Mr Alexander said: "There are many other schools in need of repair and investment. | Mr Alexander said: "There are many other schools in need of repair and investment. |
| "We will put £10bn behind this, enough to clear the urgent backlog, and we are investing too to create one million new places in a decade, across the country, including in Lancashire, Leeds and London." | "We will put £10bn behind this, enough to clear the urgent backlog, and we are investing too to create one million new places in a decade, across the country, including in Lancashire, Leeds and London." |
| The Department for Education said later on Thursday that as a result of the spending review, it would be spending £7.5bn creating 500,000 additional school places by 2021 and that this was on top of the £5bn that will have been spent by 2015. | |
| This was the amount the department had asked for, officials added. |