SOARING COST OF TEACHING MIGRANT CHILDREN
£3bn bill ‘another reason to quit EU’
THE cost of educating 700,000 children from the EU in British schools has hit £3.2billion a year.
The bill has nearly doubled in 10 years thanks to free movement rules, it was revealed yesterday.
Employment Minister Priti Patel said the figures showed the impact of mass immigration, which would remain “out of control” as long as Britain stayed in the EU. “And this will be mirrored in terms of the
impact on hospitals and housing too,” she added.
Anti-Brussels campaigners are further frustrated that a Government study of the impact of migration on the education system is not expected to be revealed until after the June 23 EU referendum.
It is one of a series of potentially explosive reports and legislation Leave campaigners say is being held back for fear of encouraging Britons to vote to end membership of the EU.
Government figures revealed that nearly 700,000 school-aged children – one in 15 pupils in state schools – had a parent who was a citizen of another EU country.
Analysis based on per-pupil funding of around £4,500 a year suggests the cost of educating such children, if they all attended state schools, was more than £3.2billion last year, up from £1.8billion in 2007.
Ukip MP Douglas Carswell said: “Over the course of the last Parliament, the total number of new arrivals from the EU was equivalent to 19 cities the size of Cambridge.
“Of course it will have a massive impact on public services including school places. We need to be able to take control of our borders and that means voting to leave on June 23.”
There was also criticism that voters will make their decision without seeing the Government’s official assessment migration’s impact on schools.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan launched a major review more than a year ago but the results are not expected to be published, if at all, until after the referendum.
Ms Patel said: “It’s simply not right for those who want to remain in the EU to seek to sway the debate in this of way.” Senior Tory Eurosceptic campaigner MP Stewart Jackson said the situation would only worsen as new countries joined the bloc.
Pro-Remain Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday fuelled fears in his party that refusing to back tougher migration controls will drive supporters towards leaving the EU.
He called for more Government funding to tackle housing and school place shortages and pressure on the NHS. But he declined to criticise immigration.
A Government spokesman said: “Damaging our economy by leaving the EU is not the way to control immigration – a damaged and weaker economy would mean less money to spend our schools.
“That would lead to fewer school places and bigger class sizes with our children paying the price. By building a stronger economy, we will deliver 600,000 more school places over the next five years.” Alarm...Priti Patel