National Union of Teachers delegates at annual conference express support for a vote on industrial action if incoming government fails to address budget squeeze

The National Union of Teachers has backed a ballot on industrial action should the next government fail to increase funding for schools in England and Wales.

NUT delegates at the union’s annual conference in Harrogate overwhelmingly supported a motion for a ballot on potential strike action. They also came out in favour of holding discussions with other teaching unions about joint action over the looming budget squeeze based on funding plans advanced by Labour and the Conservatives.

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Speakers argued that analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed school funding would be cut by up to 12% in real terms under the plans of both major parties, and would inevitably lead to job losses and increased workload, as well as lower pay and pension contributions for school staff.

The motion gives the NUT executive leeway over the timing of a strike ballot, with the leadership saying they would wait to see if the autumn statement saw funding improve under the incoming government.

“With pupil numbers up and with schools facing additional costs due to increases in employer national insurance and pensions costs, the NUT is calling for all political parties to commit to investing to provide the additional school places we need and to protect education spending,” Christine Blower, NUT general secretary, said after the result was announced.



If a strike ballot went ahead, it would be the first to be held by the NUT since 2012, when the result was used to authorise subsequent strikes over pay and pensions in 2013 and 2014.



An amendment calling for more aggressive demands, including a £2,000 pay rise and a “calendar of escalating national strike action”, was narrowly defeated after a card vote.

Ian Murch, from the NUT executive, told delegates during debate on the motion: “If we want our children’s education to be safe after the election, we have a real fight on our hands.

“Early next year across England and Wales – as employers face up to these financial realities – there will be a night of the long knives in every school and college as teaching staff are cut, as support staff are cut and as programmes and courses are cut.”

Murch attacked Labour’s proposals – which would increase funding by the rate of inflation but would not take into account a forecast increase in pupil numbers – and said of Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary: “We always knew there was a touch of the Hogwarts about you.”

Anne Lemon, a member of the NUT’s executive, said a 12% cut in funding was the equivalent of one pound out of every £8 spent at present. “If there’s no change, if they’re going to carry out these 12% cuts, that’s the trigger for the NUT to take action. That’s the trigger to call members for a ballot,” Lemon said.

In response to the strike threat, a Conservative spokesman said: “We have had to make difficult decisions to tackle the record deficit we inherited but we have protected spending on schools in real terms and spending per pupil has gone up over the course of this parliament.

“We have committed to protect the money that schools receive for every individual child they teach.”

The conference also backed an amendment highlighting the steeper cuts faced by sixth-form and further education colleges, where funding has not been protected by the coalition government’s ringfencing of school funding, noting that post-16 colleges were unable to claim back VAT, a loss for some schools of £300,000 a year.

Nigel Fox, a delegate from west Hampshire, said sixth-form colleges were “crash-test dummies in a Conservative experiment to run education in a competitive environment” with their VAT payments effectively being used to fund free schools that were competing with colleges for pupils and resources.

The conference also backed a motion on Monday condemning Ukip’s immigration and education policies, as well as government policy requiring British values to be promoted in schools in the wake of the Trojan horse affair in Birmingham.

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Delegates argued the government’s policy had had a chilling effect on classroom discussions because of the fear of being accused of promoting extremism, as well as having left teachers uncertain about what sort of discussions they could allow or what they would have to report.

Jan Nielsen, a teacher from Wandsworth, told the conference: “We have to be clear that we are being put in the position where we are being expected to be the frontline stormtroopers – who listen, spy and notify the authorities about students that we may be suspicious of.”

The conference heard that a pupil who applied for time off school to visit his dying grandfather in Pakistan had his laptop taken and searched by the school’s headteacher, who questioned the boy over websites he had visited.

