The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)

My Lords, on 22 May we were able to announce that this Government will fulfil the recommendations of the School Teachers’ Review Body and award a 4% pay increase to our teachers. Alongside that, we were able to announce an additional £615 million to fund that pay increase. That, alongside last year’s acceptance of the STRB’s recommendations, means that, while this Government have been in office, teachers have received a pay increase of nearly 10%. That is a fundamentally important contribution to retaining teachers in our classrooms and recruiting new teachers to be able to meet our 6,500 extra specialist teachers during this Parliament. Noble Lords opposite, while asking legitimate questions, might like to reflect on the fact that, when we arrived in government, we found on the desks of the DfE the STRB’s recommendations from last year that their Government had run away from implementing. Since this Government have been in office, given the action we have taken not only on pay but on other provisions, we have seen an increase of 2,000 students starting teacher training. We estimate that the actions we have taken will ensure that an additional 2,500 teachers will be retained in the workforce over and above what would have happened had the previous Government continued their action towards teachers.