Teacher Recruitment and Retention
What steps she is taking to recruit and retain teachers.
Since entering Government, we have turned the tide on the teacher retention and recruitment crisis left behind by the Tories. We have achieved over 70% of our 6,500 additional teachers target. There are now over 4,600 more teachers in our secondary and special schools, as well as our colleges, compared with when Labour entered Government. We are also keeping our brilliant teachers in place, with the latest statistics showing one of the lowest leaver rates on record.
A Public Accounts Committee report published last summer found that the Department for Education not only lacked a plan for recruiting the additional teachers that Labour pledged in its manifesto, but did not understand why teachers are leaving the sector. Despite the Secretary of State’s saying that the Department is on track to meet an already revised and narrower target, this month’s DFE report found that there are 1,907 fewer teachers overall since Labour came to power. What further steps is the Secretary of State taking to recruit and retain our teachers?
We have published the delivery plan that the hon. Lady referred to, so I suggest that she goes away and reads it. When she does so, she may also be interested to know that primary pupil numbers have fallen by more than 84,000 since last year, and that that is set to continue until at least 2030, because of the historically low birth rate in our country. This Labour Government are improving teacher pay, improving workload and addressing the wider pressures that schools face, especially on child poverty. I am incredibly proud that this Labour Government will lift more children out of poverty than any Government ever.
The working lives of teachers and leaders study last year showed that almost three in 10 teachers were expecting to leave the profession in the next 12 months, and 90% of the people who have left or are intending to leave cite high workload and stress as the most common reason. There are more teachers leaving the profession than coming into it. What is my right hon. Friend’s Department doing to ensure that we retain as many of these fantastic, critical workers in the profession as possible?
I know that my hon. Friend values the contribution of our teachers as much as I do. High quality teaching is the single biggest factor in good educational outcomes for our children. We are improving pay and taking action on workload. I am also proud that we are doubling maternity pay—the first major change in maternity pay for teachers in more than 25 years. That is essential in a profession that is primarily female. By ending the Tories’ two child limit and lifting half a million children out of poverty, we will ease the strain on teachers, who for too long have had to step in where Governments have failed.
I call the shadow Minister.
The Secretary of State knows that the figure she has quoted to the House excludes primary schools. The Labour party manifesto promised to increase the number of teachers by 6,500, funded by the party’s education tax, yet this morning the DFE website says that there are now 1,900 fewer teachers than in 2024. Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, says that the overall fall in teacher numbers makes a mockery of this Government’s promise to increase teacher numbers. He is right, isn’t he?
I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes away and has a look at the pledge that we made in our manifesto, which is that we would recruit the teachers where we needed them most. I am afraid to say that the birth rate in this country is at an historic low. There are more than 80,000 fewer primary school children across our country. It would be madness not to take that into account. I would suggest that he had a word with his boss about how the maths and logic stack up, but given that she was in government when the Conservatives crashed the economy, I am not sure that I should recommend it.