Labour accuses Boris Johnson of recycling teacher payment scheme

Labour has accused Boris Johnson of announcing a "less generous recycling" of a scheme aimed at luring more maths and science teachers to deprived areas.

In his Conservative Party conference speech, the PM said the "best" staff would get £3,000 tax-free salary boost from the "levelling up premium".

But Labour said this effectively meant a return to recently scrapped early-career payments for teachers.

These were worth up to £7,500 in areas of England with high educational needs.

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In his conference speech in Manchester, Mr Johnson promised the government would work to bring better jobs and pay to all areas.

But he argued that, for this to happen, educational opportunities had to be spread more evenly.

Mr Johnson said: "There is absolutely no reason why the kids of this country should lag behind and why so many should be unable to read or write or do basic mathematics at 11."

He added that "to level up you need to give people the options, the skills that are right for them, and to make the most of those skills and knowledge you need urgently to plug all the other gaps in the infrastructure that are still holding people and communities back".

"We are announcing a levelling up premium of up to £3,000 to send the best maths and science teachers to the places that need them most," Mr Johnson also said.

Under the new scheme, teachers in the first five years of their careers will be able to get the payments if their specialist subject is maths, physics, chemistry or computing.

Downing Street said this would cost £60m over three years, with the money coming from new funding, and would support staff recruitment and retention.

'Late in day'

Early-career payments, which initially applied only to maths teachers, were introduced in England in 2018-19.

Given to those in their third and fifth years in the job, they amounted to £5,000, or £7,500 in areas with high educational needs.

In 2020-21, the scheme expanded to include - with lower payments - maths, physics, chemistry and foreign languages teachers starting postgraduate teacher training.

But the scheme was scrapped for those starting training in the 2021-22 academic year.

For Labour, shadow education secretary Kate Green said: "The Conservatives have no idea how to improve education and outcomes for young people. The premium announced today is a less generous recycling of an old policy that Boris Johnson's government scrapped just a year ago.

"Under the Conservatives, teacher vacancies have more than doubled, school funding will be lower in real terms next year than it was in 2010 and the promised £30,000 teacher starting salary has still not been delivered."

Natalie Perera, chief executive of the Education Policy Institute, called Mr Johnson's announcement that the government was reinstating targeted payments to get teachers into challenging areas a "welcome move - albeit one that has come late in the day".

Sam Freedman, a former adviser at the Department for Education, told BBC Radio 4's the World at One: "It is a policy that existed, was introduced in 2018, lasted a couple of years and then was scrapped.

"So this is actually a kind of U-turn and they are bringing it back in a slightly tweaked form, which is certainly welcome because we have a serious recruitment problem and retention problem with teachers that this may do a small amount to help with, but it is not a new policy."