9:00am Monday 12th May 2008
By Joanna Kilvington
Secondary schools across Hounslow may face funding cuts if Conservatives win the general election, the MP for Feltham and Heston, has warned.
Alan Keen aired his fear after Labour's Minister for Schools and Learners Jim Knight revealed last Thursday the Conservatives plan to cut £4.5billion from Labour's Building Schools for the Future (BSF).
The scheme aims to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England, with work on more than 1,000 school building projects already under way in the first six "waves".
Hounslow Council has applied for the borough's 14 secondary schools to be part of BSF.
Yet, if accepted, they will be in the seventh wave that faces cuts.
In his statement, Mr Keen expressed Labour's belief that the Conservatives would use the money saved to create new academies in the borough rather than improving existing schools.
However, the leader of the Conservative-led Hounslow Council, Councillor Peter Thompson said: "Last week, the council formally submitted an application for BSF funding.
"Now nearly, six months later, Alan Keen has decided to release, as breaking news, the incorrect claims made in a generalised Labour press release by Schools Minister Jim Knight.
"Either Mr Keen knows something about our application, or he is just catching up on his political correspondences. In any event, he should come clean about his timing and motives."
Hounslow Council deputy for education and children, Councillor Paul Lynch said if a new school was to be built in Hounslow it would be because of rising rolls, not because any schools were failing.
Brentford ward Councillor Andrew Dakers said: "From the Liberal Democrats point of view it shouldn't be one way or another.
"In some parts of London new schools do have to be built but equally its existing schools need work before they fall apart."
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